Smith’s final place in the history of both American poetry and the literature of fantasy has yet to be determined, but that he has an honored place is without question. It would be narrow and simplistic to maintain that he merely created a succession of fantasy realms as an escape from “real” life and its concerns; in fact, those realms serve as the backdrop for keen investigations of human emotions—the poignancy of loss in “Xeethra,” the inescapable lure of the bizarre in “The City of the Singing Flame,” the soul-annihilating terror of an encounter with the utterly alien in “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” and so on. (Joshi XXI)

The writings of Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961), where do they fit in the square of Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, the Decadent, and Gothic fiction? They certainly do more than open up new worlds, new genres, new modes of writing. Smith’s works are reminder of those older, darker channels via which Romanticism and the Gothic pours through and forth the human heart. Smith’s works are those which are enamored with the wicked, the profane, with the purest, succulent evil that makes humanity what it is. Romanticism is too often spoken of as a trendy, bohemian pursuit of nonconformity, sensitivity, and subjectivity. This modern idea of what Romanticism is has become so narrow that it is much too far from the truth. Smith returns the ebon wings that will guide readers to that true core of Romanticism, reminding all of the mortal yearning for the forbidden, the unknowable, the macabre, and the decayed. Smith’s works are part of a pure Romanticism, a Dark Romanticism, and they are not made out of only just a love of imagination and childhood virtue, for they summon up the gorgeous, luscious seduction of the tomb, the darkness, the morbidly decadent; they thirst of the wine and ichor of life as much as they hunger for the past, bones, and sorcery.

Clark Ashton Smith’s writing, while sharing some vaguely similar motifs with the work of Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), goes beyond Goldsmith and his ilk. It scratches the itch toward something far more real yet surreal or Symbolist. Smith’s works are there, almost like a chain and linkage, between the works of William Wordsworth (1770–1850) and George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) and Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821–1867) and Robert Ervin Howard (1906–1936). The work of Smith is that shadowy place where Romanticism meets the Decadent and Sword and Sorcery. And, perhaps, by reading Smith, readers begin to understand what makes Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, and the Gothic so different from one another, even though they could be seen to be united or, at least, within the same genre literature family. To read Clark Ashton Smith is to become Promethean, to tap into the undeniable temptation and majesty of all that is forbidden, beautiful, and tragic. His works are a reminding that, while humankind will always long for both innocence and passion, there are those who find pleasure and satisfaction in the sublime, the numinous, the desolation, and the decadence of life and death. It is a power and an identity that wishes to realize and exalt these chaotic and disturbing emotions that have been fundamental to human life since our primordial inception.

His works shout out that this is what Romanticism always has been and should continue to be—the glorious and supreme curiosity and beguiling with damnation, desolation, decadence, depravity, and the grotesque. This is the hidden yet necessary core of Romanticism: the war against cold-blooded rationalism and soulless industrialization, the human beast that is both with angels and with demons, the want for darkness and imagination that frees the unbridled potential of flesh, to be in love with the eldritch and the elegant, and to go looking for places where death and beauty are bound. Human beings, at least some small tribe of them, want more than escapism and fantasy: some want the fire and the darkness of melancholy, death, the decadent spiral of debauchery; some wish to reach into the bloody cadavers of the damned, of ourselves, of yesteryear. Smith’s works show us why it is important to seek out the horror and the glory of beauty and death, why it is important to touch pain as much as joy—such pursuits belong to personalities which are not found in just any common person. The literature of Clark Ashton Smith continues the traditions of the fundamental Romantics, continues to give power and voice to all who know that calling, who search for the weird, the spooky, and the charming chill of ravishing rot. He takes the passion of Romanticism and aims it at the “dark.”

Clark Ashton Smith was not the first, nor last, to write of such morbid wanting and dark decadence. His works display an undeniable connection to the old masters of Dark Romanticism. They rekindle the awesome spirit of Romanticism through: the obsessing over and the linkage with exoticism and Orientalism; a wish to see desire, nature, and the past triumph over the modern; the brooding melancholy that comes with an exquisite fixation on destruction; the sublime; and decadence. By understanding Smith’s works and their connection to the Gothic, the Decadent, Romanticism, and Dark Romanticism, readers will be able to appreciate the position of his works between these genres. His writings hold a Romanticism for the morbid and the fantastical. They are not entirely focused on the universe, nature, or the passion of living. They hold attention on nature but of its darker beauty, tragedy, decay, and its unknown side. It is a morbid Romanticism, a phantastic Romanticism of darkness and otherworldly adventure. By looking at the connections between these four genres and his works, readers should be able to understand his art in a purer way, to understand exactly what kind of a shadow he left on the future too. “Clark Ashton Smith’s prose fiction and poetry reveal to us realms, creatures, and events that never were and never could be, doing so in an idiom that utilized the linguistic resources of the English language to their fullest” (Joshi ix).

In trying to understand Smith’s linkage with Gothic fiction, one of the best places to start is by looking at the exoticism and Orientalism of that masterstroke of William Thomas Beckford (1760–1844): Vathek. It is from this novel that the linkage between the Gothic and exotic can be noticed. Concerning Vathek, there are three important pieces to look at. The first being—“VATHEK, ninth Caliph of the race of the Abassides, was the son of Motassem, and the grandson of Haroun al Raschid” (Beckford 1). The second important item:

The third important piece:

These three items are important because they are so similar, so resonant, to Smith’s writing, and they create for the reader this profound dominion of exotic-sounding places and things with this Oriental sort of spirit joined to palaces of fantastic-seeming nature, decadence, and pleasure. All this sensuality is linked with Vathek’s depravity and his magnificence, but also his capacity for causing pain and fear: “His figure was pleasing and majestic; but when he was angry, one of his eyes became so terrible, that no person could bear to behold it; and the wretch upon whom it was fixed, instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired” (Beckford 1). This creates an aura of palpable atmosphere connected to an awful power that is beyond human, and is frightening. All of these things combine to create this uncanny effect that might be found in the Weird Fiction of Smith or Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937). Concerning Smith’s use of the exotic and Orientalism, look at his The Black Diamonds, The Sword of Zagan, “From the Crypts of Memory”, “Cycles”, and “The Last Incantation.” Romanticists like Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) and Lord Byron produced works with such exoticism and Orientalism too. Just as the Gothic is able to use these techniques, just as Romanticism used them, so did Smith.

Clark Ashton Smith’s writings also produce this longing to see the outmoded return again in triumph, a motif created with words, ideas, and language to produce this effect that generates a vision of the past returning like a zombie that will survive beyond civilization and machine. This is reminiscent of a very Romantic notion, as seen through “And did those feet in ancient time”:—

This "Jerusalem" sends us three pieces of importance that bring readers to the core of the Romanticism movement: humankind longs to return to a state of nature; industry and the modern is Satanic and wrong; and the forces of evil modernity will be fought with passion, weapons, and gear that hark back to outdated yet spiritual, mystic language and war to reclaim what has been lost. It is a scream at the world. The bow, the arrow, the spear, and the chariot are obsolete; yet, with a kind of sublime fury, they become unmatched and ready to vanquish the inhuman factories of soulless, diabolic modernity. Diabolic passion fighting diabolic industry. A tempest of battle. Does “Jerusalem” not sound like something that could have been written by Robert Ervin Howard? Imagine fighting with only sword and muscle, but being able to defeat any sorcery, machine, tool, or trickery. Also, look at that word: “builded” (Blake). Now let us take a look at “The Last Incantation”: “Malygris the magician sat in the topmost room of his tower that was builded on a conical hill above the heart of Susran, capital of Poseidonis” (Smith 16). Archaic-seeming language and words are used to produce this opulent sort of sublime effect; such erudite yet potent locution is used with Smith’s writing and with the writing of Blake, who was himself a great power of Romanticism. Nature, including all its beauty and decay, is better than the machine and the darkness of the industrial; this natural beauty is linked with archaic language and a certain kind of passionate strength that, while antiquated, can become a spiritual, mystic, unfathomable weapon that can help humanity.

Part Two of this article can be found here.

Matthew Pungitore graduated with a Bachelor of Science in English from Fitchburg State University. He volunteers with the Hingham Historical Society. The town of Hingham, Massachusetts is where he was brought up, and he has lived there for many years. Matthew is the author of The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories, Fiendilkfjeld Castle, and Midnight's Eternal Prisoner: Waiting For The Summer.

If you’ve liked what you’ve read here, check out some of Matthew Pungitore’s writings at his BookBaby author-page.

Contact him at: matthewpungitore_writer@outlook.com

Works Cited

Beckford, William. Vathek. Vathek. Ed. Roger Lonsdale. London: Oxford U, 2008. Print.

Blake, William. “Jerusalem [“And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time”].” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 29 Apr. 2021.

Joshi, S. T. Introduction. The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies (Penguin Classics), by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by S. T. Joshi, Penguin Classics, 2014.

Smith, Clark Ashton. "The Last Incantation." The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. By Clark Ashton Smith. Ed. S. T. Joshi. New York, NY: Penguin, 2014. Print.