Nemesis In HP Lovecraft

“HP Lovecraft”, famed for his pioneering work in the genre of horror literature, was also a poet in addition to being a storyteller. Among all of his poetry, the one poem I find the most potent is Nemesis. This poem, it tells a harrowing tale of the titular nemesis. However, it is certainly not what most would first assume it to be. The nemesis is not a person, group, or thing, but rather the storyteller himself and his perspective on past experiences. The poem is a tale of how one man's envy turns to violence and greed, entrapping him in a nightmarish prison of his own creation where he is hounded by demons for the sins he has committed. The use of image and personification in this poem is especially strong. We can see that in the example of “When the sky was a vaporous flame; I have seen the dark universe yawning.” This is strong imagery, easily evoking an image of an unreal, mystic and ethereal sky, hazing in and out of seeming existence into a nothingness that lies beyond this world. A truly disturbing picture that serves to only strengthen the tone and mood of the piece. Furthermore, the attribution of human
Throughout each couplet they follow a pattern of 1 2 1 2 2 in rhyming order, where 1 rhymes with 1 and 2 with 2. The eerie and unnatural nature of the rhyming pattern adds to the supernatural characters and scary setting. It helps to connect the mythical and horrifying tone associated with Lovecraft with the tale of this long ancient and forgotten civilization the man is sent to as punishment for his crime. Apart from the descriptive terror and fear the haunting displays, even without words, the torturous repetition of the dreams is shown in the irregular haunting rhyme pattern. As the dreams repeat, so do the first and last stanzas as if the story were to simply recommence showing the never-ending cycle of the demonic