āWhether a work of horror evokes cosmic fear is, in fact, the identifying mark of the genre for Lovecraft [ā¦] Cosmic fear for Lovecraft is an exhilarating mixture of fear, moral revulsion, and wonderā¦The capacity for this sensation of fear, which Lovecraft believes is coeval with religious feeling, is instinctual. Humans, it appears, are born with a kind of fear of the unknown which verges on awe. Thus, the attraction of supernatural horror is that it provokes a sense of awe which confirms a deep-seated human conviction about the world, viz., that it contains vast unknown forces.ā
ā Noel Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror
