Book detail: The City of Dreadful Night is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
The City of Dreadful Night is a lengthy poem by the Scottish poet James Thomson, first published in 1874. The work is a somber and philosophical meditation on the human condition, set in a vast, oppressive, and seemingly eternal city that symbolizes a state of psychological and spiritual desolation. Through a series of vivid and haunting stanzas, the poem depicts the wanderings of a solitary narrator through this urban hell, encountering various figures who embody different aspects of hopelessness and existential dread. The poem is noted for its bleak, pessimistic tone and its exploration of themes such as the absence of God, the futility of life, and the crushing weight of urban alienation, reflecting the anxieties of the Victorian era. It remains a significant work in the canon of English poetry for its powerful imagery and its unflinching portrayal of despair.
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