Как пишется ктулху на английском

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cthulhu
Cthulhu Mythos character
Sketch of Cthulhu drawn by Lovecraft (11 May 1934)
First appearance	«The Call of Cthulhu» (1928)
Created by	H. P. Lovecraft
In-universe information
Species	Great Old One
Family	Azathoth (great-great-grandfather) Yog-Sothoth (grandfather) Shub-Niggurath (grandmother) Nug (parent)[1]

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story «The Call of Cthulhu»,^[2] published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.

Etymology, spelling, and pronunciation[edit]

Invented by Lovecraft in 1928, the name Cthulhu was probably chosen to echo the word chthonic (Ancient Greek «of the earth»), as apparently suggested by Lovecraft himself at the end of his 1923 tale «The Rats in the Walls».^[3] The chthonic, or earth-dwelling, spirit has precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, often guarding mines and precious underground treasures, notably in the Germanic dwarfs and the Greek Chalybes, Telchines, or Dactyls.^[4]

Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo, and said, «the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The ‘u’ is about like that in ‘full’, and the first syllable is not unlike ‘klul’ in sound, hence the ‘h’ represents the guttural thickness»^[5] yielding something akin to /χ(ə)ʟʊʟˈluː/. S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave different pronunciations on different occasions.^[6] According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.^[7] Cthulhu has also been spelled in many other ways, including Tulu, Katulu, and Kutulu.^[8] The name is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread.

Long after Lovecraft’s death, Chaosium stated in the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game: «we say it kuh-THOOL-hu» (), even while noting that Lovecraft said it differently.^[9] Others use the pronunciation Katulu or Kutulu or .^[10]

Description[edit]

In «The Call of Cthulhu», H. P. Lovecraft describes a statue of Cthulhu as: «A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.»^[11]

Cthulhu is said to resemble a green octopus, dragon, and a human caricature, hundreds of meters tall, with webbed, human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back.^[11] Its head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a gigantic octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth.

Publication history[edit]

The short story that first mentions Cthulhu, «The Call of Cthulhu», was published in Weird Tales in 1928, and established the character as a malevolent entity, hibernating within R’lyeh, an underwater city in the South Pacific. The imprisoned Cthulhu is apparently the source of constant subconscious anxiety for all mankind, and is also the object of worship, both by many human cults (including some within New Zealand, Greenland, Louisiana, and the Chinese mountains) and by other Lovecraftian monsters (called Deep Ones^[12] and Mi-Go^[13]). The short story asserts the premise that, while currently trapped, Cthulhu will eventually return. His worshippers chant «Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn« («In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.»)^[11]

Lovecraft conceived a detailed genealogy for Cthulhu (published as «Letter 617» in Selected Letters)^[1] and made the character a central reference in his works.^[14] The short story «The Dunwich Horror» (1928)^[15] refers to Cthulhu, while «The Whisperer in Darkness» (1930) hints that one of his characters knows the creature’s origins («I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth.»)^[13] The 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness refers to the «star-spawn of Cthulhu», who warred with another race called the Elder Things before the dawn of man.^[16]

August Derleth, a correspondent of Lovecraft’s, used the creature’s name to identify the system of lore employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors, the Cthulhu Mythos. In 1937, Derleth wrote the short story «The Return of Hastur», and proposed two groups of opposed cosmic entities:

the Old or Ancient Ones, the Elder Gods, of cosmic good, and those of cosmic evil, bearing many names, and themselves of different groups, as if associated with the elements and yet transcending them: for there are the Water Beings, hidden in the depths; those of Air that are the primal lurkers beyond time; those of Earth, horrible animate survivors of distant eons.^[17]: 256

According to Derleth’s scheme, «Great Cthulhu is one of the Water Elementals» and was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with a designated air elemental, Hastur the Unspeakable, described as Cthulhu’s «half-brother.»^{[17]: 256, 266} Based on this framework, Derleth wrote a series of short stories published in Weird Tales (1944–1952) and collected as The Trail of Cthulhu, depicting the struggle of a Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against Cthulhu and his minions. In addition, Cthulhu is referenced in Derleth’s 1945 novel The Lurker at the Threshold published by Arkham House. The novel can also be found in The Watchers Out of Time and Others, a collection of stories from Derleth’s interpretations of Lovecraftian Mythos published by Arkham House in 1974.

Derleth’s interpretations have been criticized by Lovecraft enthusiast Michel Houellebecq, among others. Houellebecq’s H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (2005) decries Derleth for attempting to reshape Lovecraft’s strictly amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between forces of objective good and evil.^[18]

In John Glasby’s «A Shadow from the Aeons», Cthulhu is seen by the narrator roaming the riverbank near Dominic Waldron’s castle, and roaring.^[19]

The character’s influence also extended into gaming literature; games company TSR included an entire chapter on the Cthulhu mythos (including character statistics) in the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Deities & Demigods (1980). TSR, however, were unaware that Arkham House, which asserted copyright on almost all Lovecraft literature, had already licensed the Cthulhu property to game company Chaosium. Although Chaosium stipulated that TSR could continue to use the material if each future edition featured a published credit to Chaosium, TSR refused and the material was removed from all subsequent editions.^[20]

Influence[edit]

Politics[edit]

Cthulhu has appeared as a parody candidate in several elections, including the 2010 Polish presidential election and the 2012 and 2016 US presidential elections.^[21][22] The faux campaigns usually satirize voters who claim to vote for the «lesser evil». In 2016, the troll account known as «The Dark Lord Cthulhu» submitted an official application to be on the Massachusetts Presidential Ballot. The account also raised over $4000 from fans to fund the campaign through a gofundme.com page. Gofundme removed the campaign page and refunded contributions. The Cthulhu Party (UK), another pseudo-political organisation, claim to be ‘Changing Politics for Evil’, parodying the Brexit Party’s ‘Changing Politics for Good’; a member of The Cthulhu Party holds the position of Mayor of Blists Hill. Another organization, Cthulhu for America, ran during the 2016 American presidential election, drawing comparisons with other satirical presidential candidates such as Vermin Supreme.^[23] The organization had a platform that included the legalization of human sacrifice, driving all Americans insane, and an end to peace.^[24]

Science[edit]

Several organisms have been named after Cthulhu, including the California spider Pimoa cthulhu,^[25] the New Guinea moth Speiredonia cthulhui,^[26] and Sollasina cthulhu, a fossil echinoderm.^[27] Two microorganisms that assist in the digestion of wood by termites have been named after Cthulhu and Cthulhu’s «daughter» Cthylla: Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque.^[28]

In 2014, science and technology scholar Donna Haraway gave a talk entitled «Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble», in which she proposed the term «Chthulucene» as an alternative for the concept of the Anthropocene era, due to the entangling interconnectedness of all supposedly individual beings.^[29] Haraway has denied any indebtedness to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, claiming that her «chthulu» is derived from Greek khthonios, «of the earth».^[30] However, the Lovecraft character is much closer to her coined term than the Greek root, and her description of its meaning coincides with Lovecraft’s idea of the apocalyptic, multitentacled threat of Cthulhu to collapse civilization into an endless dark horror: «Chthulucene does not close in on itself; it does not round off; its contact zones are ubiquitous and continuously spin out loopy tendrils.»^[31]

In 2015, an elongated, dark region along the equator of Pluto, initially referred to as «the Whale», was proposed to be named «Cthulhu Regio», by the NASA team responsible for the New Horizons mission.^[32] It is now known as «Cthulhu Macula».^[33][34]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Lovecraft, H. P. «The Call of Cthulhu». www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. Retrieved 2020-04-15.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cthulhu
Cthulhu Mythos character
Sketch of Cthulhu drawn by Lovecraft (11 May 1934)
First appearance	«The Call of Cthulhu» (1928)
Created by	H. P. Lovecraft
In-universe information
Species	Great Old One
Family	Azathoth (great-great-grandfather) Yog-Sothoth (grandfather) Shub-Niggurath (grandmother) Nug (parent)[1]

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story «The Call of Cthulhu»,^[2] published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.

Etymology, spelling, and pronunciation[edit]

Invented by Lovecraft in 1928, the name Cthulhu was probably chosen to echo the word chthonic (Ancient Greek «of the earth»), as apparently suggested by Lovecraft himself at the end of his 1923 tale «The Rats in the Walls».^[3] The chthonic, or earth-dwelling, spirit has precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, often guarding mines and precious underground treasures, notably in the Germanic dwarfs and the Greek Chalybes, Telchines, or Dactyls.^[4]

Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo, and said, «the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The ‘u’ is about like that in ‘full’, and the first syllable is not unlike ‘klul’ in sound, hence the ‘h’ represents the guttural thickness»^[5] yielding something akin to /χ(ə)ʟʊʟˈluː/. S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave different pronunciations on different occasions.^[6] According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.^[7] Cthulhu has also been spelled in many other ways, including Tulu, Katulu, and Kutulu.^[8] The name is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread.

Long after Lovecraft’s death, Chaosium stated in the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game: «we say it kuh-THOOL-hu» (), even while noting that Lovecraft said it differently.^[9] Others use the pronunciation Katulu or Kutulu or .^[10]

Description[edit]

In «The Call of Cthulhu», H. P. Lovecraft describes a statue of Cthulhu as: «A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.»^[11]

Cthulhu is said to resemble a green octopus, dragon, and a human caricature, hundreds of meters tall, with webbed, human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back.^[11] Its head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a gigantic octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth.

Publication history[edit]

The short story that first mentions Cthulhu, «The Call of Cthulhu», was published in Weird Tales in 1928, and established the character as a malevolent entity, hibernating within R’lyeh, an underwater city in the South Pacific. The imprisoned Cthulhu is apparently the source of constant subconscious anxiety for all mankind, and is also the object of worship, both by many human cults (including some within New Zealand, Greenland, Louisiana, and the Chinese mountains) and by other Lovecraftian monsters (called Deep Ones^[12] and Mi-Go^[13]). The short story asserts the premise that, while currently trapped, Cthulhu will eventually return. His worshippers chant «Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn« («In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.»)^[11]

Lovecraft conceived a detailed genealogy for Cthulhu (published as «Letter 617» in Selected Letters)^[1] and made the character a central reference in his works.^[14] The short story «The Dunwich Horror» (1928)^[15] refers to Cthulhu, while «The Whisperer in Darkness» (1930) hints that one of his characters knows the creature’s origins («I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth.»)^[13] The 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness refers to the «star-spawn of Cthulhu», who warred with another race called the Elder Things before the dawn of man.^[16]

August Derleth, a correspondent of Lovecraft’s, used the creature’s name to identify the system of lore employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors, the Cthulhu Mythos. In 1937, Derleth wrote the short story «The Return of Hastur», and proposed two groups of opposed cosmic entities:

the Old or Ancient Ones, the Elder Gods, of cosmic good, and those of cosmic evil, bearing many names, and themselves of different groups, as if associated with the elements and yet transcending them: for there are the Water Beings, hidden in the depths; those of Air that are the primal lurkers beyond time; those of Earth, horrible animate survivors of distant eons.^[17]: 256

According to Derleth’s scheme, «Great Cthulhu is one of the Water Elementals» and was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with a designated air elemental, Hastur the Unspeakable, described as Cthulhu’s «half-brother.»^{[17]: 256, 266} Based on this framework, Derleth wrote a series of short stories published in Weird Tales (1944–1952) and collected as The Trail of Cthulhu, depicting the struggle of a Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against Cthulhu and his minions. In addition, Cthulhu is referenced in Derleth’s 1945 novel The Lurker at the Threshold published by Arkham House. The novel can also be found in The Watchers Out of Time and Others, a collection of stories from Derleth’s interpretations of Lovecraftian Mythos published by Arkham House in 1974.

Derleth’s interpretations have been criticized by Lovecraft enthusiast Michel Houellebecq, among others. Houellebecq’s H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (2005) decries Derleth for attempting to reshape Lovecraft’s strictly amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between forces of objective good and evil.^[18]

In John Glasby’s «A Shadow from the Aeons», Cthulhu is seen by the narrator roaming the riverbank near Dominic Waldron’s castle, and roaring.^[19]

The character’s influence also extended into gaming literature; games company TSR included an entire chapter on the Cthulhu mythos (including character statistics) in the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Deities & Demigods (1980). TSR, however, were unaware that Arkham House, which asserted copyright on almost all Lovecraft literature, had already licensed the Cthulhu property to game company Chaosium. Although Chaosium stipulated that TSR could continue to use the material if each future edition featured a published credit to Chaosium, TSR refused and the material was removed from all subsequent editions.^[20]

Influence[edit]

Politics[edit]

Cthulhu has appeared as a parody candidate in several elections, including the 2010 Polish presidential election and the 2012 and 2016 US presidential elections.^[21][22] The faux campaigns usually satirize voters who claim to vote for the «lesser evil». In 2016, the troll account known as «The Dark Lord Cthulhu» submitted an official application to be on the Massachusetts Presidential Ballot. The account also raised over $4000 from fans to fund the campaign through a gofundme.com page. Gofundme removed the campaign page and refunded contributions. The Cthulhu Party (UK), another pseudo-political organisation, claim to be ‘Changing Politics for Evil’, parodying the Brexit Party’s ‘Changing Politics for Good’; a member of The Cthulhu Party holds the position of Mayor of Blists Hill. Another organization, Cthulhu for America, ran during the 2016 American presidential election, drawing comparisons with other satirical presidential candidates such as Vermin Supreme.^[23] The organization had a platform that included the legalization of human sacrifice, driving all Americans insane, and an end to peace.^[24]

Science[edit]

Several organisms have been named after Cthulhu, including the California spider Pimoa cthulhu,^[25] the New Guinea moth Speiredonia cthulhui,^[26] and Sollasina cthulhu, a fossil echinoderm.^[27] Two microorganisms that assist in the digestion of wood by termites have been named after Cthulhu and Cthulhu’s «daughter» Cthylla: Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque.^[28]

In 2014, science and technology scholar Donna Haraway gave a talk entitled «Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble», in which she proposed the term «Chthulucene» as an alternative for the concept of the Anthropocene era, due to the entangling interconnectedness of all supposedly individual beings.^[29] Haraway has denied any indebtedness to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, claiming that her «chthulu» is derived from Greek khthonios, «of the earth».^[30] However, the Lovecraft character is much closer to her coined term than the Greek root, and her description of its meaning coincides with Lovecraft’s idea of the apocalyptic, multitentacled threat of Cthulhu to collapse civilization into an endless dark horror: «Chthulucene does not close in on itself; it does not round off; its contact zones are ubiquitous and continuously spin out loopy tendrils.»^[31]

In 2015, an elongated, dark region along the equator of Pluto, initially referred to as «the Whale», was proposed to be named «Cthulhu Regio», by the NASA team responsible for the New Horizons mission.^[32] It is now known as «Cthulhu Macula».^[33][34]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Lovecraft, H. P. «The Call of Cthulhu». www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. Retrieved 2020-04-15.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cthulhu
Cthulhu Mythos character
Sketch of Cthulhu drawn by Lovecraft (11 May 1934)
First appearance	«The Call of Cthulhu» (1928)
Created by	H. P. Lovecraft
In-universe information
Species	Great Old One
Family	Azathoth (great-great-grandfather) Yog-Sothoth (grandfather) Shub-Niggurath (grandmother) Nug (parent)[1]

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first introduced in his short story «The Call of Cthulhu»,^[2] published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.

Etymology, spelling, and pronunciation[edit]

Invented by Lovecraft in 1928, the name Cthulhu was probably chosen to echo the word chthonic (Ancient Greek «of the earth»), as apparently suggested by Lovecraft himself at the end of his 1923 tale «The Rats in the Walls».^[3] The chthonic, or earth-dwelling, spirit has precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, often guarding mines and precious underground treasures, notably in the Germanic dwarfs and the Greek Chalybes, Telchines, or Dactyls.^[4]

Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo, and said, «the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The ‘u’ is about like that in ‘full’, and the first syllable is not unlike ‘klul’ in sound, hence the ‘h’ represents the guttural thickness»^[5] yielding something akin to /χ(ə)ʟʊʟˈluː/. S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave different pronunciations on different occasions.^[6] According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.^[7] Cthulhu has also been spelled in many other ways, including Tulu, Katulu, and Kutulu.^[8] The name is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread.

Long after Lovecraft’s death, Chaosium stated in the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game: «we say it kuh-THOOL-hu» (), even while noting that Lovecraft said it differently.^[9] Others use the pronunciation Katulu or Kutulu or .^[10]

Description[edit]

In «The Call of Cthulhu», H. P. Lovecraft describes a statue of Cthulhu as: «A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.»^[11]

Cthulhu is said to resemble a green octopus, dragon, and a human caricature, hundreds of meters tall, with webbed, human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back.^[11] Its head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a gigantic octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth.

Publication history[edit]

The short story that first mentions Cthulhu, «The Call of Cthulhu», was published in Weird Tales in 1928, and established the character as a malevolent entity, hibernating within R’lyeh, an underwater city in the South Pacific. The imprisoned Cthulhu is apparently the source of constant subconscious anxiety for all mankind, and is also the object of worship, both by many human cults (including some within New Zealand, Greenland, Louisiana, and the Chinese mountains) and by other Lovecraftian monsters (called Deep Ones^[12] and Mi-Go^[13]). The short story asserts the premise that, while currently trapped, Cthulhu will eventually return. His worshippers chant «Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn« («In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.»)^[11]

Lovecraft conceived a detailed genealogy for Cthulhu (published as «Letter 617» in Selected Letters)^[1] and made the character a central reference in his works.^[14] The short story «The Dunwich Horror» (1928)^[15] refers to Cthulhu, while «The Whisperer in Darkness» (1930) hints that one of his characters knows the creature’s origins («I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth.»)^[13] The 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness refers to the «star-spawn of Cthulhu», who warred with another race called the Elder Things before the dawn of man.^[16]

August Derleth, a correspondent of Lovecraft’s, used the creature’s name to identify the system of lore employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors, the Cthulhu Mythos. In 1937, Derleth wrote the short story «The Return of Hastur», and proposed two groups of opposed cosmic entities:

the Old or Ancient Ones, the Elder Gods, of cosmic good, and those of cosmic evil, bearing many names, and themselves of different groups, as if associated with the elements and yet transcending them: for there are the Water Beings, hidden in the depths; those of Air that are the primal lurkers beyond time; those of Earth, horrible animate survivors of distant eons.^[17]: 256

According to Derleth’s scheme, «Great Cthulhu is one of the Water Elementals» and was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with a designated air elemental, Hastur the Unspeakable, described as Cthulhu’s «half-brother.»^{[17]: 256, 266} Based on this framework, Derleth wrote a series of short stories published in Weird Tales (1944–1952) and collected as The Trail of Cthulhu, depicting the struggle of a Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against Cthulhu and his minions. In addition, Cthulhu is referenced in Derleth’s 1945 novel The Lurker at the Threshold published by Arkham House. The novel can also be found in The Watchers Out of Time and Others, a collection of stories from Derleth’s interpretations of Lovecraftian Mythos published by Arkham House in 1974.

Derleth’s interpretations have been criticized by Lovecraft enthusiast Michel Houellebecq, among others. Houellebecq’s H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (2005) decries Derleth for attempting to reshape Lovecraft’s strictly amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between forces of objective good and evil.^[18]

In John Glasby’s «A Shadow from the Aeons», Cthulhu is seen by the narrator roaming the riverbank near Dominic Waldron’s castle, and roaring.^[19]

The character’s influence also extended into gaming literature; games company TSR included an entire chapter on the Cthulhu mythos (including character statistics) in the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Deities & Demigods (1980). TSR, however, were unaware that Arkham House, which asserted copyright on almost all Lovecraft literature, had already licensed the Cthulhu property to game company Chaosium. Although Chaosium stipulated that TSR could continue to use the material if each future edition featured a published credit to Chaosium, TSR refused and the material was removed from all subsequent editions.^[20]

Influence[edit]

Politics[edit]

Cthulhu has appeared as a parody candidate in several elections, including the 2010 Polish presidential election and the 2012 and 2016 US presidential elections.^[21][22] The faux campaigns usually satirize voters who claim to vote for the «lesser evil». In 2016, the troll account known as «The Dark Lord Cthulhu» submitted an official application to be on the Massachusetts Presidential Ballot. The account also raised over $4000 from fans to fund the campaign through a gofundme.com page. Gofundme removed the campaign page and refunded contributions. The Cthulhu Party (UK), another pseudo-political organisation, claim to be ‘Changing Politics for Evil’, parodying the Brexit Party’s ‘Changing Politics for Good’; a member of The Cthulhu Party holds the position of Mayor of Blists Hill. Another organization, Cthulhu for America, ran during the 2016 American presidential election, drawing comparisons with other satirical presidential candidates such as Vermin Supreme.^[23] The organization had a platform that included the legalization of human sacrifice, driving all Americans insane, and an end to peace.^[24]

Science[edit]

Several organisms have been named after Cthulhu, including the California spider Pimoa cthulhu,^[25] the New Guinea moth Speiredonia cthulhui,^[26] and Sollasina cthulhu, a fossil echinoderm.^[27] Two microorganisms that assist in the digestion of wood by termites have been named after Cthulhu and Cthulhu’s «daughter» Cthylla: Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque.^[28]

In 2014, science and technology scholar Donna Haraway gave a talk entitled «Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble», in which she proposed the term «Chthulucene» as an alternative for the concept of the Anthropocene era, due to the entangling interconnectedness of all supposedly individual beings.^[29] Haraway has denied any indebtedness to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, claiming that her «chthulu» is derived from Greek khthonios, «of the earth».^[30] However, the Lovecraft character is much closer to her coined term than the Greek root, and her description of its meaning coincides with Lovecraft’s idea of the apocalyptic, multitentacled threat of Cthulhu to collapse civilization into an endless dark horror: «Chthulucene does not close in on itself; it does not round off; its contact zones are ubiquitous and continuously spin out loopy tendrils.»^[31]

In 2015, an elongated, dark region along the equator of Pluto, initially referred to as «the Whale», was proposed to be named «Cthulhu Regio», by the NASA team responsible for the New Horizons mission.^[32] It is now known as «Cthulhu Macula».^[33][34]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Lovecraft, H. P. «The Call of Cthulhu». www.hplovecraft.com. Donovan K. Loucks. Retrieved 2020-04-15.

ктулху

Cthulhu is fictional cosmic entity created by H. P. Lovecraft in his short story «The Call of Cthulhu». First appearing in the February 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, he is depicted as an octopoid Great Old One of enormous power who lies in a death-like slumber in his sunken city of R’lyeh beneath the Pacific Ocean. He is the namesake and the best-known element of the Cthulhu Mythos, appearing in the works of numerous authors following Lovecraft and frequently referenced in popular culture.

Quotations

Description

The most detailed descriptions of Cthulhu are based on statues of the creature. One, constructed by an artist after a series of baleful dreams, is said to have «yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature […] A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.» (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu) Another, recovered by police from a raid on a murderous cult, «represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.» (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu)

Castro, a Cthulhu cultist reports that the Great Old Ones are telepathic and «knew all that was occurring in the universe.» They were able to communicate with the first humans by «moulding their dreams,» thus establishing the Cthulhu Cult, but after R’lyeh had sunk beneath the waves, «the deep waters, full of the one primal mystery through which not even thought can pass, had cut off the spectral intercourse.» (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu)

Worshippers

It is unknown how large the throng of those who worship the dreaded Cthulhu is, but his cult has many cells around the globe. The cult is noted for chanting its horrid phrase or ritual: «Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,» which translates as «In his house at R’lyeh dead C’thulhu waits dreaming.» (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu) This is often shortened to «Cthulhu fhtagn,» which might possibly mean «Cthulhu waits,» «Cthulhu dreams,»^[1] or «Cthulhu waits dreaming.»^[2]

When the creature finally appears, the story says that the «thing cannot be described,» but it is called «the green, sticky spawn of the stars», with «flabby claws» and an «awful squid-head with writhing feelers.» Johansen’s phrase «a mountain walked or stumbled» gives a sense of the creature’s scale. (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu) This is corroborated by Wilcox’s dreams, which «touched wildly on a gigantic thing ‘miles high’ which walked or lumbered about».

Cthulhu is depicted as having a worldwide cult centred in Arabia, with followers in regions as far-flung as Greenland and Louisiana. (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu)

There are leaders of the cult «in the mountains of China» who are said to be immortal. Cthulhu is described by some of these cultists as the «great priest» of «the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky.» (HPL: The Call of Cthulhu)

Cthulhu is also worshiped by the nonhuman creatures known as Deep Ones. (HPL: «The Shadow Over Innsmouth»)

History

Cthulhu is mentioned in other sources, sometimes described in ways that appear to contradict information given the most well-known accounts. For example, rather than including Cthulhu among the Great Old Ones, a quotation from the Necronomicon says of the Old Ones, «Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can it spy Them only dimly.» (HPL: «The Dunwich Horror») But different Lovecraft stories and characters use the term «Old Ones» in widely different ways.

Human explorers in Antarctica discovered an ancient city, for example, where the Old Ones are described as a species of extraterrestrials, also known as Elder Things, who were at war with Cthulhu and his relatives or allies. The discoverers of the Elder Things were able to puzzle out a history from sculptural records:

William Dyer, part of the Antarctic expedition, also notes that «the Cthulhu spawn […] seem to have been composed of matter more widely different from that which we know than was the substance of the Antarctic Old Ones. They were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations impossible for their adversaries, and seem therefore to have originally come from even remoter gulfs of cosmic space […] The first sources of the other beings can only be guessed at with bated breath.» He notes, however, that «the Old Ones might have invented a cosmic framework to account for their occasional defeats.» (HPL: At the Mountains of Madness) Other stories have the Elder Things’ enemies repeat this cosmic framework.

In another account, (HPL: «The Whisperer in Darkness») there is a reference to «the fearful myths antedating the coming of man to the earth–the Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu cycles–which are hinted at in the Necronomicon.» That suggests that Cthulhu is one of the entities worshiped by the alien Mi-go race, and repeats the Elder Things’ claim that the Mi-go share his unknown material compositions. Cthulhu’s advent is also connected, in some unknown fashion, with supernovae (or possibly metaphorical stars, such as major historical figures): «I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth.» The story mentions in passing that some humans call the Mi-Go «the old ones» (HPL: «The Whisperer in Darkness»)

Investigations into the cult activity in Innsmouth, Massachusetts has revealed that Cthulhu is also worshiped by the nonhuman creatures known as Deep Ones. (HPL: «The Shadow Over Innsmouth»)

The priest Kathulos (CIRCLE: «Skull-Face») is Cthulhu (HPL: Selected Letters 3.421, «The Whisperer in Darkness»)

Family

With the revelation of writing detailing his relations, we have learned that Cthulhu descends from Yog-Sothoth, possibly having been born on Vhoorl, in the 23rd Nebula. He mated with Idh-yaa on the planet Xoth. His offspring are Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, Zoth-Ommog, and Cthylla. (EXP: The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia (3rd ed.))

Family tree

Main article: Family tree of Azathoth

According to correspondence between Lovecraft and fellow author James F. Morton, Cthulhu’s parent is the deity Nug, itself the offspring of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath. Lovecraft includes a fanciful family tree in which he himself descends from Cthulhu via Shaurash-ho, Yogash the Ghoul, K’baa the Serpent, and Ghoth the Burrower. (HPL: Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft 4.617).

Associated Materials

Main article: Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture

Gallery

Main article: Cthulhu/Gallery

Behind the Mythos

• George Olshevsky named the nonconvex snub polyhedra after some other Great Old Ones, with the Great inverted snub icosidodecahedron as «Cthulhu».

Name

Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl’-hloo, although S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave several differing pronunciations on different occasions. (EXP: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories)

According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.^[3] Long after Lovecraft’s death, the pronunciation kə-TH’oo-loo became common, and the game Call of Cthulhu endorsed it.

Artistic imagery

Cthulhu has served as direct inspiration for many modern artists and sculptors. Prominent artists that produced renderings of this creature include, but are not limited to, Paul Carrick, Stephen Hickman, Kevin Evans, Dave Carson, Francois Launet and Ursula Vernon. Multiple sculptural depictions of Cthulhu exist, one of the most noteworthy being Stephen Hickman’s Cthulhu Statue which has been featured in the Spectrum annual^[4] and is exhibited in display cabinets in the John Hay Library of Brown University of Providence. This statue of Cthulhu often serves as a separate object of inspiration for many works, most recent of which are the Cthulhu Worshiper Amulets^[5] manufactured by a Russian jeweler. For some time, replicas of Hickman’s Cthulhu Statuette were produced by Bowen Designs,^[6] but are currently not available for sale. Today Hickman’s Cthulhu statue can only be obtained on eBay and other auctions.

External Links

• Cthulhu at the Marvel Database

References

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• Ktulu, Kutulu

Etymology[edit]

Invented in 1926 by H.P. Lovecraft for his short story The Call of Cthulhu. Possibly based on chthonic (“dwelling under the earth”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): (widely used spelling pronunciation) /kəˈθuːluː/, /kəˈtuːluː/
• Rhymes: -uːlu, -uː

Usage notes[edit]

• Lovecraft used various approximations of what he imagined as a name not pronounceable by humans, none of which he described clearly.

Proper noun[edit]

Cthulhu

1. A gigantic fictional humanoid alien god being described with a head resembling an octopus and dragon wings and claws, around whom an insane cult developed.

   • 1928, H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu:

     Then, bolder than the storied Cyclops, great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to pursue with vast wave-raising strokes of cosmic potency.

Derived terms[edit]

• Cthulhuesque
• Cthulhian
• Cthulhic

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• Lovecraftian

Further reading[edit]

• Cthulhu on Wikipedia.Wikipedia