Travis Watt

University Honors with Honors in English

Majors: English and Creative Writing

Supervisor: Nicholas Laudadio, English

The Horror is Knowing: The Limitations of H.P. Lovecraft's Weird Fiction and its Effect on Affect

In Lovecraft's assessment of the ineffable, he interrogates the idea of “reality” by pointing out the contradictions inherent to mimetic representation in prose. From “The Call of Cthulhu,”Lovecraft decants this line: “The Thing cannot be described,there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order,” suggesting his own complicated and misanthropic personal existence and the emphasis he places on paradox that we see in his fiction .