Art, Drugs, and Religion: Clark Ashton Smith's "The Disinterment of Venus"

So I've revving up my engines to prepare for writing my next dissertation chapter. This chapter will focus will on Clark Ashton Smith (13 January 1893 – 14 August 1961), a poet and writer of fantasy fiction who published in Weird Tales alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. I wanted to discuss one of this stories here, "The Disinterment of Venus." Published in Weird Tales in July of 1934, it appeared alongside the famous novelette, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," a collaboration between H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price.

The story takes place in Smith's imaginary French province of Averoigne, at a 16th century Benedictine monastery. While the monks are digging in their garden, they come upon a giant statue, "the grimy head and torso of what was plainly a marble woman goddess from antique years." The statue is revealed to be somewhat supernatural. It evokes in people who look upon it deep desires. These desires are animal in nature: lust, hunger, the desire for alcohol. To a large extent, the statue emanates a kind of vice aura that contaminates those who look upon it. As the story progresses, the statue turns many of the otherwise god-fearing monks to sin. Eventually, one monk decides he has had enough. He approaches the statue with an intent on destroying it, with a heavy hammer. He is found the next day in the hole from which they exhumed the statue. The statue has crushed him to death, is on top of him, and it seems as though--even in death--he is embracing it.

Though this story didn't "scare" me, I found it extremely intriguing. I think allegorizes a certain kind of relationship to art, to drugs, to religion. In this story, an art object becomes monstrous. It becomes a kind of narcotic, something the monks become addicted to. And it leads to their ruin. I think this comparison between art and addictive drugs quite intriguing. Both drugs and art are reagents to ostensibly expand one's consciousness, yes? And furthermore, both drugs and art are sometimes offered as substitutes for religious experience. In this story, you have a drug-like art object set in a monastery, a place of worship. For me, this temple place with a goddess statue that attracts like a drug is a kind of "bridge point" between this world and other worlds. It is a kind of precipice that the monks throw themselves into in order to escape mundane existence in the seeking out of other worlds.

I think there is an ever prevalent attraction to the idea of "escaping" the world through art, through drugs, through religion Clark Ashton Smith's oeuvre as a whole.

The Dissertation Prospectus as a Speculative Genre

So, I'm currently struggling to write my dissertation prospectus. Since it's been in the forefront of my mind of late, I'm going to write a brief post about it.

First, what is a prospectus generally? Well, according to Google's embedded dictionary, the word prospectus means, "A printed document that advertises or describes a school, commercial enterprise, forthcoming book, etc., in order to attract or inform clients, members, buyers, or investors."

I find this intriguing, particularly in terms of the words marketing and business associations. It makes me ask, is my prospectus an "advertisement" for my scholarship? Is my prospectus selling something? Let's table that for a  bit.

Second, what is an academic or a dissertation prospectus? An academic prospectus usually serves four functions. Here are the four. I've lifted them, word for word, from the graduate student handbook of the English Department at Case Western Reserve University, where I'm working on my Ph.D. in Literature.

• A clear statement of the student's thesis, theoretical approach, and a summary of anticipated evidence.
• A discussion of the likely contribution of the study; what gaps in our knowledge will it fill?
• An outline/summary of the proposed chapters or sections.
• A bibliography.

So, marrying the two definitions together, here's where my definition stands: I need to "sell" my scholarship by clearly and directly stating (1) what I'm going to study, (2) why its relevant, (3) how I'm going to organize my study, and (4) what evidence I'm going to draw from.

That's a large order.

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It's interesting, I think, to think of the dissertation prospectus as a kind of "speculative genre", if you will. What, fundamentally, does the dissertation prospectus do? It's talks about something that doesn't exist just yet.

Let's compare the dissertation prospectus as I've defined it here with a definition of "speculative fiction." For convenience, I'm just drawing from Wikipedia. Here's the Wikipedia definition:

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.

At first glance it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the dissertation prospectus. To a large extent, it doesn't. But it does share a fundamental characteristic: both genres are discussing something that does not exist yet.

A small point, I know, but comforting. And I don't know why.