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{{for|the short story by Rudyard Kipling|Rudyard Kipling bibliography}} |
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'''''The City of Dreadful Night''''' is a long [[poetry|poem]] by the [[Scotland|Scottish]] poet [[James Thomson (B.V.)|James "B.V." Thomson]], written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the ''[[National Reformer]]'' in 1874,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/thomson/city1.html | title="Poison Mixed With Gall": James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night — A Personal View | last=Sullivan | first=Dick | accessdate=2008-09-29}}</ref> then in 1880 in a book entitled ''The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems.'' |
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{{Short description|Long poem by James "B.V." Thomson}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} |
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{{italic title}} |
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[[File:London slums Wellcome L0000877.jpg|thumb|Illustration of 19th-century London slums by [[Gustave Doré]]]] |
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'''''The City of Dreadful Night''''' is a [[long poem]] by the [[Scotland|Scottish]] poet [[James Thomson (poet, born 1834)|James "B.V." Thomson]], written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the ''[[National Reformer]]'' in 1874,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/thomson/city1.html | title="Poison Mixed With Gall": James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night – A Personal View | last=Sullivan | first=Dick | access-date=2008-09-29}}</ref> then, in 1880, in a book entitled ''The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thomson|first=James|url=https://archive.org/details/cityofdreadfulni00thomrich|title=The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems|publisher=Reeves and Turner|year=1880|location=London}}</ref> The poem is noted for the [[philosophical pessimism|pessimistic philosophy]] that it expresses.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Salt|first=Henry S.|date=August 1896|title=Among the Authors: The Poet of Pessimism|url=https://www.henrysalt.co.uk/library/essay/the-poet-of-pessimism/|journal=The Vegetarian Review|pages=360–362}}</ref> It has been argued that the city described in the poem is based on [[London]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Importance of Being London: Looking for Signs of the Metropolis in James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night|url=http://literarylondon.org/the-literary-london-journal/archive-of-the-literary-london-journal/issue-3-1/the-importance-of-being-london-looking-for-signs-of-the-metropolis-in-james-thomsons-city-of-dreadful-night/|last=Cheng|first=Chu-chueh|website=Literary London Society|date=27 April 2016 |access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> |
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The poem, despite its insistently bleak tone, won the praise of [[George Meredith]], [[Rudyard Kipling]] and of [[George Saintsbury]], who in ''A History of Nineteenth-Century Literature'' wrote that "what saves Thomson is the perfection with which he expresses the negative and hopeless side of the sense of mystery."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Saintsbury|first=George|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31698|title=A History of Nineteenth-Century Literature (1780–1895)|publisher=The Macmillan Company|year=1906|location=London|pages=298|language=en}}</ref> |
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Thomson, who sometimes used the [[pseudonym]] "Bysshe Vanolis" — in honour of [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]] and [[Novalis]] — was a thorough [[pessimism|pessimist]], suffering from lifelong [[melancholia]] and [[clinical depression]], as well as a wanderlust that took him to [[Colorado]] and to [[Spain]], among other places. |
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The ''City of Dreadful Night'' that gave its title to this poem, however, was made in the image of [[London]]. It is a London transformed by the eye of a despairing [[atheism|atheist]]; the poet has lost his faith and found nothing but emptiness to replace it. The poem, despite its insistently bleak tone, won the praise of [[George Meredith]], and also of [[George Saintsbury]], who in ''A History of Nineteenth Century Literature'' wrote that "what saves Thomson is the perfection with which he expresses the negative and hopeless side of the sense of mystery ..." |
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The title was re-used as the title of short stories by [[Rudyard Kipling]] and [[O. Henry]]. |
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The poem was the inspiration for the title of [[John Rechy]]'s novel "City of Night", and the first stanza of the poem was quoted in the book. |
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== Quotation == |
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:''O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!<br>O battling in black floods without an ark!<br> O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!<br>My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,<br>With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:<br> Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!'' |
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:''My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;<br>Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail<br> And perish in your perishing unblest.<br>And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope<br>Of all our universe, with desperate hope<br> To find some solace for your wild unrest.'' |
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:''And now at last authentic word I bring,<br>Witnessed by every dead and living thing;<br> Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:<br>There is no God; no Fiend with names divine<br>Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,<br> It is to satiate no Being's gall.'' |
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:''It was the dark delusion of a dream,<br>That living Person conscious and supreme,<br> Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;<br>Whom we must curse because the life he gave<br>Could not be buried in the quiet grave,<br> Could not be killed by poison or the knife.'' |
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:''This little life is all we must endure,<br>The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,<br> We fall asleep and never wake again;<br>Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,<br>Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh<br> In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.'' |
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== References == |
== References == |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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*{{wikisource-inline|The City of Dreadful Night and other poems/The City of Dreadful Night|The City of Dreadful Night}} |
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{{wikiquote|James Thomson (B.V.)}} |
*{{wikiquote-inline|James Thomson (B.V.)}} |
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*[http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/ctdnt10.htm ''The City of Dreadful Night''] |
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{{gutenberg|1238}} |
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* {{librivox book | title=The City of Dreadful Night | author=James THOMSON}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:City of Dreadful Night, The}} |
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[[Category:Scottish poems|C]] |
[[Category:Scottish poems|C]] |
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[[Category:Fictional populated places in England]] |
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[[Category:London in fiction]] |
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[[Category:Victorian poetry]] |
[[Category:Victorian poetry]] |
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[[Category:Works about philosophical pessimism]] |
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[[Category:Works originally published in British magazines]] |
[[Category:Works originally published in British magazines]] |
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[[Category:Works originally published in political magazines]] |
[[Category:Works originally published in political magazines]] |
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{{1870s-poem-stub}} |
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Latest revision as of 11:03, 15 November 2024
The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by the Scottish poet James "B.V." Thomson, written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the National Reformer in 1874,[1] then, in 1880, in a book entitled The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems.[2] The poem is noted for the pessimistic philosophy that it expresses.[3] It has been argued that the city described in the poem is based on London.[4]
The poem, despite its insistently bleak tone, won the praise of George Meredith, Rudyard Kipling and of George Saintsbury, who in A History of Nineteenth-Century Literature wrote that "what saves Thomson is the perfection with which he expresses the negative and hopeless side of the sense of mystery."[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Sullivan, Dick. ""Poison Mixed With Gall": James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night – A Personal View". Retrieved 29 September 2008.
- ^ Thomson, James (1880). The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems. London: Reeves and Turner.
- ^ Salt, Henry S. (August 1896). "Among the Authors: The Poet of Pessimism". The Vegetarian Review: 360–362.
- ^ Cheng, Chu-chueh (27 April 2016). "The Importance of Being London: Looking for Signs of the Metropolis in James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night". Literary London Society. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
- ^ Saintsbury, George (1906). A History of Nineteenth-Century Literature (1780–1895). London: The Macmillan Company. p. 298.
External links
[edit]
Works related to The City of Dreadful Night at Wikisource
Quotations related to James Thomson (B.V.) at Wikiquote
- The City of Dreadful Night at Project Gutenberg
The City of Dreadful Night public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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