Style
Fungi from Yuggoth represents a marked departure from the mannered poems Lovecraft had been writing up to this point. Sending a copy of "Recapture" (which just predates the sequence but was later incorporated into it) the poet remarks that it is 'illustrative of my efforts to practice what I preach regarding direct and unaffected diction'.
The sonnet forms used by Lovecraft veer between the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean. His multiple use there of feminine rhyme is reminiscent of A.E. Housman (e.g. in sonnets 15, 19). In addition, his sonnet 13 (Hesperia) has much the same theme as Housman's "Into my heart an air that kills" (A Shropshire Lad XL).
Varying opinions have been expressed in the critical literature on Lovecraft as to whether the poems form a continuous cycle which tells a story, or whether each individual sonnet is discrete. Phillip Ellis, in his essay "Unity in Diversity: Fungi from Yuggoth as a Unified Setting", discusses this problem and suggests a solution.
In addition to "The Whisperer in Darkness," the cycle references other works by Lovecraft and introduces a number of ideas that he would expand upon in later works.
- The town of Innsmouth is mentioned in sonnets VIII ("The Port") and XIX ("The Bells")
- The story told in sonnet XII ("The Howler") presages "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932). Its description of the witch's familiar, described as "a four-pawed thing with human face," echoes the description of Brown Jenkin, a rat-like creature with a human face.
- Sonnet XXVI references events preceding those in "The Dunwich Horror."
- Sonnets XXI and XXII, respectively, are named for and concern the Outer Gods Nyarlathotep and Azathoth.
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