"H.P. Lovecraft uses antiquarian and forbidden knowledge to show and question man's place in the universe."
Forbidden knowledge... I honestly don't like how that statement reads out. Lovecraft was flat out anti-humanist when it came to his mythos, and rooted his horror in the
incomprehensibility of extended knowledge, (i..e the knowledge that man reaches for, but will truly never attain or be able to contain). The knowledge itself wasn't prohibited, it was just... maddening.
Lovecraft himself stated this:
Lovecraft said:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
The origin of this knowledge comes from the maddening glimpses of "true" reality, and in some cases it is handed down by means of hereditary (remember, he was not only profoundly racist and geopolitical, but also followed many of the theories of racial hierarchy that existed at the time).
One good example of this is the story of "Dagon". Anyway, in this story a man escapes a ship and ends up stranded in the ocean for a period of time, during a point in time he goes unconscious. When he awakes he is ashore and the smell of death is all around him - as he notices the bodies of both fish and creatures that he hopes are fish that have never been discovered. He goes over the landscape and starts climbing, and continues to do so till he gets to a ledge. He notices strange monolithic statues across the chasm and tries to make out the art that is engraved on them (what he see's are deep ones worshiping old one's and greater deep ones, and is trying to figure out if the size comparisons are exaggerated or not (he sees a deep one bigger than a blue whale, etc.); out of the corner of his eye, he spots something moving that is so massive that it it dwarfs the monoliths he was staring at. Just grasping this vision sends him into a frenzy of fear, and he claws at the earth while trying to climb away as fast as he can to the safety of the beached boat he left behind. When he awakes, he is in a room and discovers he was picked up by English soldiers, and then returned home. More than likely he commits suicide shortly after due to his experience (I really don't remember the ending).
Point is though, he only
somewhat saw a greater deep one, but because of its nature, its relational difference to accepted reality, his seeing this otherworldly thing - even only partially, was enough to break his mind and send him running in fear of his existence. He didn't go running after knowledge, he merely stumbled upon it.
For your thesis, I think you should focus on the effects of knowledge, as to many character they merely come into the states where knowledge may be discovered - quite easily mind you. You should look at the stories of "The Unnamable", "Dagon", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "Memory", and of course "
The Dunwich Horror".
"The Beast in the Cave" might give you some insight into certain aspects of his writing... I love the sotry, and it isn't too long.
