Moorings 2020

To Be Well-Versed in the Language of Calamity Kaitlyn Heintzelman H.P. Lovecraft is not a stranger to the particularly gruesome and horrific. In fact, his stories thrive in a forbidden, unnatural setting. Not only does he explore a world containing veiled knowledge, but also hints at the dangers of human curiosity, and above all, the danger of being a misinformed and weak human being. Despite the severity, Lovecraft manages to mold these feelings of horror in one phrase: “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”. It is apparent that in his short story At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft uses the phrase “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” for a twofold reason: it is both a cry of pain of oppression and a manifestation of fear uttered when one comes into contact with evil incarnate.

Lovecraft borrows the phrase “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In the novel, Poe first associates the cry with natives dwelling in Antarctica where “with the strangest expressions of mingled horror, rage, and intense curiosity depicted on their countenances, and shouting, at the top of their voices, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

(Poe 125). Immediately the phrase connotes an air of fear and revulsion. Though it is unclear whether the phrase comes from the speaker’s native language or merely a name invented for this unnamed entity, it is evident that this phrase wields power. One does not say it lightly or without purpose. In other words, one only utters this phrase when encountered with evil. Poe later connects the phrase to enigmatic white birds: “The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision” (139). In this sense, the phrase escalates to the knowledge one has from spending time “beyond the veil,” as in the afterlife. And more than Moorings 34