The City Of Dreadful Night
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The City Of Dreadful Night
''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, then, in 1880, in a book entitled ''The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems''. The poem is noted for the philosophical pessimism, pessimistic philosophy that it expresses. It has been argued that the city described in the poem is based on London. Reception The poem, despite its insistently bleak tone, won the praise of George Meredith 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." References External links

* * * 1874 poems Scottish poems, C Fictional populated places in England London in fiction Victorian poetry Works about philosophical pessimism Works originally published in British magazin ...
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London Slums Wellcome L0000877
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ...
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Long Poem
The long poem is a literary genre including all poetry of considerable length. Though the definition of a long poem is vague and broad and unnecessary, the genre includes some of the most important poetry ever written. With more than 220,000 (100,000 shloka or couplets) verses and about 1.8 million words in total, the '' Mahābhārata'' is the longest epic poem in the world. It is roughly ten times the size of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' combined, roughly five times longer than Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', and about four times the size of the ''Ramayana'' and Ferdowsi's ''Shahnameh''. In English, '' Beowulf'' and Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde'' are among the first important long poems. The long poem thrived and gained new vitality in the hands of experimental Modernists in the early 1900s and has continued to evolve through the 21st century. The long poem has evolved into an umbrella term, encompassing many subgenres, including epic, verse novel, verse narrative, lyric se ...
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Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scott ...
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James Thomson (poet, Born 1834)
James Thomson (23 November 1834 – 3 June 1882), who wrote under the pen name Bysshe Vanolis, was a Scottish journalist, poet, and translator. He is most often remembered for ''The City of Dreadful Night'' (1874; 1880), a poetic allegory of urban suffering and despair. Thomson's pen name derives from the names of the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley and Novalis, both strong influences on him as a writer. Thomson's essays were written mainly for ''National Reformer'', ''Secular Review'', and ''Cope's Tobacco Plant''. His longer poems include "The Doom of a City" (1854), "Vane's Story" (1865), and the Orientalist ballad "Weddah and Om-El-Bonain". He admired and translated the works of the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi and Heinrich Heine. In the title of his biography of Thomson, Bertram Dobell dubbed him "the Laureate of Pessimism". Life Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland, and, at the age of eight (after his sister died and his father suffered a stroke), he was sent ...
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National Reformer
The ''National Reformer'' was a secularist weekly publication in 19th-century Britain (1860-1893), noted for providing a longstanding "strong, radical voice" in its time, advocating atheism. Under the editorship of Charles Bradlaugh for the majority of its lifespan, each issue stated that "The editorial policy of the Paper is Republican, Atheistic, and Malthusian, but all opinions are freely admitted, provided only that they be expressed reasonably and in proper language." History The journal was established in Sheffield in 1860, as an initiative by the Sheffield Secularists, on a prospectus describing its policy as "Atheistic in theology, Republican in politics, and Malthusian in social economy". The ''National Reformer'' was the official organ of the National Secular Society, which was established by Bradlaugh in 1886. He edited (or co-edited) the journal until his death in 1890, using it to publicise NSS activities among various other subjects of interest to freethinkers. Many ...
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Philosophical Pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an Empiricism, empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is Ontology, ontologically or Metaphysics, metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without Teleology, purpose. Their responses to this condition, however, are widely varied and can be life-affirming. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. In ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900'', Frederick C. Beiser describes philosophical pessimism as "the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be". In a very similar way, Schopenhauer argues that it would have been better if life had not come ...
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London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ...
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George Meredith
George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. ''The Ordeal of Richard Feverel'' (1859) briefly scandalized Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is ''The Egoist'' (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was ''Diana of the Crossways'' (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also took a close interest in social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". He was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. Life Early years, education and ...
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George Saintsbury
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, FBA (23 October 1845 – 28 January 1933), was an English critic, literary historian, editor, teacher, and wine connoisseur. He is regarded as a highly influential critic of the late 19th and early 20th century. Biography Born in Lottery Hall, Southampton, he was educated at King's College School, London, and at Merton College, Oxford, where he achieved a first class BA degree in Classical Mods, (1865), and a second class in ''literae humaniores'' (1867). He left Oxford in 1868 having failed to obtain a fellowship, and briefly became a master at the Manchester Grammar School, before spending six years in Guernsey as senior classical master of Elizabeth College, where he began his literary career by submitting his first reviews to '' The Academy''. From 1874 until he returned to London in 1876 he was headmaster of the Elgin Educational Institute, with a brief period in 1877 on ''The Manchester Guardian''. From the early 1880s until 1894 he wo ...
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1874 Poems
Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx. * January 2 – Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time. * January 3 – Third Carlist War – Battle of Caspe: Campaigning on the Ebro in Aragon for the Spanish Republican Government, Colonel Eulogio Despujol surprises a Carlist force under Manuel Marco de Bello at Caspe, northeast of Alcañiz. In a brilliant action the Carlists are routed, losing 200 prisoners and 80 horses, while Despujol is promoted to Brigadier and becomes Conde de Caspe. * January 20 – The Pangkor Treaty (also known as the Pangkor Engagement), by which the British extended their control over first the Sultanate of Perak, and later the other independent Malay States, is signed. * January 23 **Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, marries Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, only daughter of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. * ...
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Scottish Poems
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish identity and common culture *Scottish people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland *Scots language, a West Germanic language spoken in lowland Scotland *Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn), a symphony by Felix Mendelssohn known as ''the Scottish'' See also *Scotch (other) *Scotland (other) *Scots (other) *Scottian (other) *Schottische The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina ("chotis"Span ... * {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ca:Escocès ...
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Fictional Populated Places In England
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and conte ...
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