"Nyarlathotep" ( English Nyarlathotep ) - the story ("poem in prose" length of 1150 words) Howard Lovecraft , written in 1920. First published in The United Amateur magazine in November of the same year [1] . Nyarlathotep is the first time to create a work by Lovecraft, in which Nyarlathotep appears - one of Lover's "pantheon" gods [2] . Even as a child, Lovecraft repeatedly had a dream about a magician who gave amazing performances in New England. Once in a dream, he received a letter from his friend, Sam Loveman, where he advised him not to miss the amazing presentation of Nyarlathotep , who allegedly came to Lovecraft's hometown - Providence. It was this dream that formed the basis of the story [3] .
| Nyarlathotep (Nyarlatotep) | |
|---|---|
| Nyarlathotep | |
| Genre | Lovecraft Horrors |
| Author | Howard Phillips Lovecraft |
| Original language | English |
| Date of writing | 1920 year |
| Date of first publication | |
Content
Story
The poem is written in the first person. The narrator - a witness who survived the end of the world , tells his vision of the death of humanity. At first, the world experienced a general political crisis, accompanied by "a strange and painful feeling of terrible physical danger." Then Nyarlatotep came out of Egypt:
No one could tell who he was, but he was of ancient native blood and looked like a pharaoh. The fellahs fell to their knees when they saw him, although they could not explain why. He said that he had risen from the darkness of the twenty-seven centuries and heard the news from places beyond this planet. Dark, slim and sinister, Nyarlathotep came to civilized lands, constantly buying strange glass and metal appliances and collecting even more strange instruments from them. He talked a lot about the sciences - about electricity and psychology - and demonstrated the abilities from which those who saw him were speechless and thanks to which his fame grew immensely. And wherever Nyarlathotep came, peace disappeared there; for the pre-dawn silence was broken by cries of horror.
Those who saw him face to face and recognized his inhuman abilities were speechless. Those who had not yet seen Nyarlathotep knew that he was bringing destruction — but they were inevitably attracted to him. The narrator at first considered Nyarlatotepa's “experiences” a fraud, but nonetheless joined the mass of people who were looking for meetings with a new deity. This meeting ended with the end of the world - divided into three columns, people limply went into "the invisible abyss of the unimaginable." The narrator saw the death of the universe.
And in the midst of this revolving cemetery of the Universe - a muffled, maddening drumbeat and shrill, monotonous howling of blasphemous flutes from incomprehensible, devoid of light spaces beyond Time; a disgusting beating and whistling, to the accompaniment of which slowly, awkwardly and absurdly, gigantic, gloomy initial gods dance - blind, voiceless, insane gargoyles , whose soul is Nyarlathotep .
Interpretations
According to , the title character of Nyarlathotep is an allegory of the inventor Nikola Tesla , who staged many strange public experiments with electricity at the beginning of the 20th century [4] . W. Towps proposed a Marxist interpretation of Lovecraft 's short story : Lovecraft portrays the feeling of shock, the grotesque associated with the deformation, "estrangement" and the destruction of the world torn by monstrous forces. Nyarlathotep serves as the “voice” of the faceless and evil deities who control the ghostly capitalist world [5] . In 2001, according to the story, a short film was shot, directed by Christian Matzke [6] .
Notes
- ↑ The United Amateur, 20, No. 2 (November 1920), 19-21.
- ↑ Joshi, ST and Schultz, DE An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia . - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. - P. 190. - 339 p. - ISBN 9780313315787 .
- ↑ Donald Tyson. The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon . - Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012. - P. 130. - 432 p. - ISBN 9780738726298 .
- ↑ Joshi, ST and Schultz, DE An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia . - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. - P. 191. - 339 p. - ISBN 9780313315787 .
- ↑ William F. Touponce. Lord Dunsany, HP Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury: Spectral Journeys. Studies in Supernatural Literature. . - Scarecrow Press, 2013. - ISBN 9780810892200 .
- ↑ Nyarlathotep (2001) - IMDb
Sources
- HP Lovecraft. The Nyarlathotep Cycle / Selected and introducted by Robert M. Price. Chaosium, 2006. ISBN 1-56882-200-6 , 9781568822006