A comparison of Archibald Lampman's The City on the End of Things
The poetry of Archibald Lampman and Bliss Carman, while having some similar themes, have remarkably different styles. Both poets have written numerous poems dealing with nature, landscape, and the comparison between these ideas and the city. In "The City on the End of Things", Lampman deals with his vision of industrialization within the city, a city of nightmarish realism. In "Twilight in Eden", Carman also deals with a vision of civilization, how industrialization has changed society. However, the language and approach used by these two poets are strikingly disparate. Lampman's "The City on the End of Things" is a vision of an apocalyptic city that is very otherworldly. The reader is never given a clear view of the city, emphasizing its dreamlike quality. The author speaks of "murky streets" and "stalking shadow", as well as "towers have grown / None knoweth how high." He does not appear to be anxious to let the reader develop an explicit visual perception of this city. The soundscape of Lampman's imaginary city is, however, quite vivid. He uses numerous words to suggest a constant cacophony of sounds that, if experienced, would assault the reader's ears. Words and phrases such as "roaring", "crashes", "inhuman musi
Thus we see that, even though both Lampman and Carman deal with a very similar topic, they each treat is in a clearly different way. Lampman chooses to make his point using a specific city created within his imagination, while Carman chooses to make generalizations about cities as a whole. Lampman created a vivid, nightmarish city that the reader can almost hear and experience through his poem, while Carman appealed to the reader's thoughts and intellect, asking questions of the reader to bring across his ideas. Lampman based his poem on his intellectual belief that life in the city is destructive, while Carman based his poem on the firm religious conviction that city life has drowned out the voice of God. Both poets appealed to the audience of the day, in that it had become popular at that time to seek a life in the country in order to get away from the mad pace of the city. Both poets, though disparate in style, are effective in conveying their ideas to the reader. Carman's message is, however, very strongly religious in its presentation. The very name of the poem immediately sets up the mystical, religious tone of the poem itself. Carman asks, "But where is the rapture of instinct / The morning in Eden knew?" It is his belief that the striving of people in the city has deafened them to t
Some common words found in the essay are:
Lampman's City, Twilight Eden, Lampman Carman, Bliss Carman, Eden Carman, City Lampman, lose touch, voice god, city life, , twilight eden, based poem, throughout poem, deals vision, city reader, city city, poem carman,
Approximate Word count = 882
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
