Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The literary philosophy developed by the American writer H P Lovecraft, stating that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as God, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cosmic +‎ -ism

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Examples

  • In that book, Herber took his place with Ramsey Campbell as a chronicler of the human half of the Mythos; it's a paean to despair more immediate than some purists' disdainful "cosmicism" would allow.

    princeofcairo: Keith Herber, RIP princeofcairo 2009

  • In that book, Herber took his place with Ramsey Campbell as a chronicler of the human half of the Mythos; it's a paean to despair more immediate than some purists' disdainful "cosmicism" would allow.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2009

  • The 'paragraphs' from Lovecraft's work have been chosen with exceptional care to highlight some of Lovecraft's most powerful and provocative utterances; and the images chosen to accompany them emphasise exactly those elements of weirdness, cosmicism, terror, and otherworldly beauty that distinguish Lovecraft's stories.

    The Lovecraft News Network 2009

  • The 'paragraphs' from Lovecraft's work have been chosen with exceptional care to highlight some of Lovecraft's most powerful and provocative utterances; and the images chosen to accompany them emphasise exactly those elements of weirdness, cosmicism, terror, and otherworldly beauty that distinguish Lovecraft's stories.

    Archive 2009-11-01 2009

  • What works most about the film is its unflinching adherence to HPL's cosmicism, and its skillful use of mood (largely accomplished through Sean Kirby's cinematography and Willy Greer's unnerving score).

    "This brilliant chill's come for the shackle." greygirlbeast 2009

  • I do love the cosmicism; the stark vastness of time, the great allusion to Buddai ("the gigantic old man who lies asleep for ages underground with his head on his arm, and who will some day awake and eat up the world"), the increasingly deft retournement of the Necronomicon (this time as 'dream diary'), and what we see of Peaslee's attempt to discover his bizarre activities while "amnesiac."

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

  • I like Buhle's nod to Heisenberg in this quote, and the way it grounds Lovecraftian cosmicism not just in quantum physics which, like the Tillinghast resonator, demonstrates just how meager our world of Newtonian experience and inference really is but also Theosophy; the sense of knowledge that predates, but somehow informs, humanity.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

  • Any hint of cosmicism in the end is drowned completely by the increasing hilarity of the narrative as Harry Houdini, our heroic narrator, continuously faints and swoons like a maiden aunt ... or like a Lovecraft protagonist.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

  • They indicate that hyperspace travel goes through time as well as space, and otherwise perform the same function that all of Lovecraft's Mythos callbacks perform, enhancing cosmicism.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

  • I would argue that "Witch House" is the almost-completed version of the skeleton first laid down in "From Beyond," (man perceives Outside, Outside comes in) and that (with "Call of Cthulhu") it is actually one of the purest and most important examples of sheer Lovecraftian cosmicism.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

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