Part One of this article can be found here.

In most of Smith’s writings, there is a brooding, a rapturous fixation on doom, destruction, decay, and destroyed things; there is also a relationship between the beautiful and the dead or doomed. This kind of writing connects to Romanticism; Smith’s “The Shadows” and “The Last Night” are nigh-perfect representations of this, especially when compared to Lord Byron’s “Darkness.”

 “The Shadows”:—

 “The Last Night”:— 

 “Darkness”:—

Just as Byron had been pondering and brooding on this idea of dead or dying worlds, so had Smith. Dreams, doom, and this sublime idea of a cosmic passing of immeasurable time being linked to a desolation and a return to the abyss of the natural universe, a natural decay and emptiness—these motifs live on from Romanticism throughout the writings of Clark Ashton Smith. These are dark prophecies of worlds that continue after humanity has forgotten everything or has been destroyed. Humanity is either all dead or has been reduced to barbarism and primitivism. And yet, there is a kind of peace to be found here, because there is that naturalistic return. It is not an emptiness brought on by oppressive machine or corrupting commercialism. It is a calling back to a kind of haunting beauty, a natural truth that goes beyond humans, a fate that cannot be undone by machine or mortal hands: unity of natural forces, tragedy, and beauty.

This Romantic element of the Sublime reaches into Smith’s works; a uniting of danger, beauty, and wonder—thinking on the forces and elements that are immeasurable and unfathomable to human minds. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), a master of Romanticism, was using similar elements, as can be seen in “Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment”:—

Compare that with “The Hashish-Eater; or, The Apocalypse of Evil”:— 

Through Smith’s art, readers may become aware of a union of infinity, of the inhuman, and of things that cannot be known. Readers are meant to envision, or attempt to envision, things that cannot be fathomed by the human mind. These creations are of ideas and domains that cannot be understood. Secrets. The immeasurable.

What connects the writings of Clark Ashton Smith with the Decadent is the very form by which Smith’s stories take shape; that is to say, Smith allows euphoria to be wrapped in, with trappings of exoticism, morbid love of darker dealings. It might be said that readers of Smith might be filled with a pleasure from being terrified, from reading about the dead and the diabolic, while also sharing fears of the unknown and the demonic. Smith’s stories almost seem to want us to delight in decay and fear its corruption, to be swept away in feelings of horror and disgust and ecstasy. There is joy to be found in sorrow, loss, and rotting bones. There is freedom among the devils of temptation and beauty. Satanic imagery and diabolic conjuration become unified as an essential essence of humankind’s imagination and pulchritude, cyphers of the mortal coil and alchemic actuality that defies the Enlightenment, defies the banality, and defies the “rational” development that spawned the repulsive industrial revolution, which is anathema to the torch of human will and human spirit. If we are going to look at the Satanic figure in literature and the Decadent movement, then let us not forget Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821–1867), whose works share similarities with Smith’s. While I do not agree with everything Jonathan Culler wrote about concerning Baudelaire, there is something interesting that Culler has noted:—

It would seem that Culler might be suggesting that there is an idea out there, this “gothic Romanticism” (Culler xxxiv), and that it is connected with motifs of the infernal, Satan, and theological fears and matters (Culler xxxiv). Baudelaire wrote his “Litanies of Satan,” and Smith had his “Satan Unrepentant,” which carry on a kind of Miltonian idea of Lucifer. These stories illuminate upon humankind’s doomed existence, its fall, and its beautiful corpse. The Decadent movement is filled by this same sense of self-hatred and of a prime lust for the taboo. This is where the Decadent meets the Gothic and Romanticism. It is in this nebulous gulf, this linkage with Baudelaire, that Smith’s works can be seen to join arm-in-arm with Dark Romanticism and the Decadent, which is interrelated to the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849). “Poe’s writings appear to have been heavily influenced by English Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1824), as well as by the early loss of his parents and the emotionally cold home provided for him by John Allan” (Sova XI). The Gothic and Romanticism are more alive now than ever before, especially because of writers like Clark Ashton Smith.

So, where do the works of the great Clark Ashton Smith belong?

His devotion to “lands forgotten and unfound” was unremitting, and out of his unbridled imagination he created realms of beauty and terror that have permanently enriched the literature of fantasy. (Joshi XXII)

However, Smith’s works are not just “Science-Fiction Fantasy” or “Sword and Sorcery.” Perhaps, Clark Ashton Smith’s art is a kind of Gothic Decadence, fiction devoted to sorcery, diabolism, spiritual rebellion, decay, excess, the exotic, the past, taboo, the macabre, and the romantic. One might even be able to hear whispers of the old Chivalric Romances running their noble course, amidst a stampede of demons and treachery and nightmares, moving through his works. Smith carried on a much older tradition, maybe even a few older traditions at once: Decadent, Gothic, Dark Romanticism, and Romanticism. It would be a shame to forget these luciferous traditions, to forget how Smith’s works carried on elements of their defiant and protean illume.

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

Byron, George Gordon. “Darkness by Lord Byron (George Gordon).” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 29 Apr. 2021.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 29 Apr. 2021.

Culler, Jonathan. “Introduction.” Introduction. The Flowers of Evil. By Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James McGowan. Trans. James McGowan. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

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 Hashish-Eater; or, The Apocalypse of Evil.” The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. By Clark Ashton Smith. Edited and Introduction by S. T. Joshi. New York, NY: Penguin, 2014. Print.

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

Smith, Clark Ashton. “The Shadows.” The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. By Clark Ashton Smith. Ed. S. T. Joshi. New York, NY: Penguin, 2014. Print.

Sova, Dawn B. Introduction. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. By Edgar Allan Poe. Comp. Barnes & Noble, Inc. Barnes & Noble, 2007. Print.