Comments on The Nameless City

I must admit I found myself bored through most of Lovecraft's short story "The Nameless City". This is an odd thing considering it is the first Lovecraft story to mention the mad poet Abdul Alhazred.

Before Lovecraft was Randolph Carter, he was Abdul Alhazred. In The Nameless City, Alhazred is mentioned along with Damascius and Afrasiab. This makes Alhazred seem real and yet mysterious at the same time. It also hints at Lovecraft's reading habits. Alhazred dreamed of the Nameless City the night before singing his famous couplet:

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”

 

This couplet is used later by Lovecraft in his fantastic story, The Call of Cthulhu.