So what, exactly, is a "Weird Tale?"

[nikolai]

I've just recently reread most of that essay (it's actually fairly tedious and devolves quickly into a horde of mini-reviews.) Of course, he quotes a lot of pre-Weird Tale literature, and talks about it being Weird as well. It's not really all that cohesive.

I think the value of the essay is that it (1) shows what Lovecraft drew upon to create weird tales, and (2) gives his opinion on how how the weird tale developed from earlier literature. You're right it's long and tedious, I wouldn't read the whole thing. The statement by him in the introduction of what he thinks is the key feature of the weird tale, may be as good as you're going to get.

A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain -- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the d&aeligmons of unplumbed space.

By weird tales Lovecraft meant a particular form of horror, distinct from earlier gothic or ghost stories. Another view is here, http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/weird.htm, where he says weird fiction is...

the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which forever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis

I think China means something much broader, a really general term covering fantasy, horror and SF: China's top 10 "weird tales" are:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,6109,716474,00.html

What exactly are you looking for in the way of an answer? List's of genre motif's? weird authors?

 

[nikolai]

Here's another quote from "Supernatural Horror in Literature"; you could spend all day finding them.

The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether of not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.

The last three chapters talk about "recent" developments, when you could talk of a school of horror writers that inspired Lovecraft (Machen, Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James).

You ask:

Also, does the genre even exist anymore? Seems like a lot of modern horror and dark fantasy is similar, but no longer binned against Weird Tales. It also seems like the original categorization was fairly broad.

There are certainly authors writing tales in the mode of Lovecraft and friends. I don't know that much about modern horror but there is certainly still a strong weird undercurrent. But, what Lovecraft and Mieville mean by weird fiction clearly isn't the same thing.

 

[Desdichado]

Exactly my point. The manifesto published by the editors of Weird Tales doesn't agree with either Mielville or Lovecraft on what a weird tale is (they include Sword and Sorcery, which they may perhaps be credited with launching, as well as sci fi and even scientific romances, as they claim HG Wells and Jules Verne styled stories are perfectly acceptable.)

So I'm left with my "I know it when I see it" criteria, and at best I can call it a curious blend of fantasy, science fiction and horror with a strain of "cosmic horror" perhaps being a hallmark of the genre.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I was kind of talking about the subject too.

Before the Great Depression there was a lot of belief and study in the occult, you saw a good bit of stories on it but it dropped off after, even going underground. It was considered wrong and immoral, wierd tales were your ghost stories and urban legends, replaced by the real horrors of the Depression and WW2.

 

[nikolai]

I think you can be more specific than "I know it when I see it", you just have to realise that there are two sets of people selling two definitions:

Tight Definition A genre of horror fiction; which focuses on "the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law" (Lovecraft). Developed out of the gothic novel and the Victorian ghost story in the early years of the twentieth century under writers like Machen, Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James. Perfected by writers such as Lovecraft and Ashton Smith who perfected genre tropes such as horrors from beyond space and time, the impingement of other dimensions upon our reality, and ancient horror from before the dawn of humanity. Continues to have a strong impact on modern horror, for example, with the success of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Lose Definition Strange and fantastic literature, sometimes used as a catch-all term for fantasy, SF and horror, with a special focus on the strange, outlandish and surreal

The lose definition has much less weight that the tight definition, much less people have sat down to write weird fiction in the second mode. The "weird tales" (magazine) definition is probably there because the title "weird tales" is more atractive than "fantasy/horror and SF tales".

 

[Henry]

The "Weird Tale" was the definition of anything that included the supernatural or fantastic in any form; it was the term used BEFORE the split into sci-fi, fantasy, sci-fantasy, etc.

Conan tales were "Weird Tales," as were Lovecraft's stuff. Before the 1920's, there was little room for the fantastic outside of the occasional novel. The economic growth and increased leisure time of post World War I saw the birth of Pulp tales for entertainment purposes.

 

[Desdichado]

The lose definition has much less weight that the tight definition, much less people have sat down to write weird fiction in the second mode. The "weird tales" (magazine) definition is probably there because the title "weird tales" is more atractive than "fantasy/horror and SF tales".

I suspect you've got the order backwards -- I think the genre, if it even is a recognized one, is named for the magazine, not the other way around.

 

[Desdichado]

The "Weird Tale" was the definition of anything that included the supernatural or fantastic in any form; it was the term used BEFORE the split into sci-fi, fantasy, sci-fantasy, etc.

Conan tales were "Weird Tales," as were Lovecraft's stuff. Before the 1920's, there was little room for the fantastic outside of the occasional novel. The economic growth and increased leisure time of post World War I saw the birth of Pulp tales for entertainment purposes.

So, are we to simply say that Weird Tale is a parent genre that is now more precisely labelled as something else? If so, it seems "Lovecraftian" fiction is a sub-genre that remains un-named.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I'd say Weird Tales are anything you read...then, at the end, just say.

"Woah...that was some weird -explicative-!"

 

[takyris]

From the writing perspective, "Weird Tales" is a magazine with a long and notable history, but that is currently run by a fairly unprofessional crank.

Unfortunately, everything I've seen about the concept of weird as a genre has gone into one of two directions:

1) Lovecraftian, which was, for awhile, what "weird" was taken to be a diplomatic way of saying (eg, one editor who didn't know this asked for "weird fiction" for his magazine, and was confused at being deluged with Cthulhu stuff).

2) Anything that reads as a (conscious or otherwise) attempt to radically blur, bend, or break the boundaries of elf-and-dragon fantasy. I believe -- believe, as in, this is the point where I'm delving into opinion and limited understanding rather than a professional understanding of the field, which you can take most of the part before that dash to be -- that it sticks to fantasy, although that fantasy might include science-fictional elements to break some of those boundaries. This usually means that anything in a new and non-Tolkienian setting tries to call itself the New Weird, because it's currently cool to be that.

These new and different settings can be different by virtue of having different social structures, different ethnic backgrounding (ie, a fantasy that isn't just a bunch of white guys running around with one dark-skinned hunter dude thrown in as Party Member Number Four), and especially different takes on the nature of magic. Wands? Not New Weird. Eating weird food and then sweating out something that gets collected into a jar and then drunk by someone in order to make them fall in love with you? Possibly New Weird. Gay polyamorous scholars creating magic by using ancient mathematical symbols to elicit emotional responses from alien slug creatures that live in their hollowed-out eye sockets, and whose emotional responses affect probability on a quantum level? Definitely New Weird, and you're guaranteed your own panel at the next WorldCon.

No slam to gay or poly folks intended -- although not a member, I like a lot of the fiction coming out of those circles. It's certainly refreshing and different, although I see it as an addition to the field, not a replacement for stuff already in it.

One thing that I don't think is New Weird is taking a common cliche and reversing it. A fantasy story told from the dragon's viewpoint? Not New Weird. Quest fantasy where noble king ends up being the bad guy? Not New Weird. These arguments against the norm only strengthen the norm as the default world of fantasy. It's the stories that utterly ignore the norm that usually get the New Weird label.