''Towards the Last Spike'' was written in 1952 by Canadian poet

E. J. Pratt Edwin John Dove Pratt (February 4, 1882 – April 26, 1964), who published as E. J. Pratt, was "the leading Canadian poet of his time."

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...

about the construction of the first transcontinental railroad line in Canada, that of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

(CPR), from 1871 through 1885. The poem won Pratt the

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

, Canada's top literary honor, for poetry in 1952. It is written in an epic style, where characters engage in both verbal and physical struggle. The poem also has a political context, illuminated by the debates between Prime Minister

John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...

(for the railway) versus

Edward Blake Dominick Edward Blake (October 13, 1833 – March 1, 1912), known as Edward Blake, was the second premier of Ontario, from 1871 to 1872 and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1880 to 1887. He is one of only three federal permanent Li ...

(against). The physical tests throughout the poem are a battle between the forces of nature (the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

is personified as a prehistoric monster) versus the combined might of the construction team headed by

William Van Horne Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, (February 3, 1843September 11, 1915) is most famous for overseeing the construction of the first Canadian transcontinental railway, a project that was completed in 1885, in under half the projected time. He succe ...

. In his introduction to Pratt's 1968 ''Selected Poems'', literary criti
Peter Buitenhuis
says of the piece: :In this poem man has the chance to learn from his mistakes and to employ his sinews and his technology to throw his thin lines of steel across

muskeg Muskeg (Ojibwe: mashkiig; cr, maskīk; french: fondrière de mousse, lit. ''moss bog'') is a peat-forming ecosystem found in several northern climates, most commonly in Arctic and boreal areas. Muskeg is approximately synonymous with bog or ...

and mountain. Again Pratt is using a mosaic technique of organizing his diverse material; but because ''Towards the Last Spike'' contains a great deal of political material, it is looser in form than the other epics. The gigantic nature of his theme tends to make the poem too impersonal, even though forces like the North Shore Laurentian monster and Lady

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

are personified.... Fortunately, the gigantism of these forces is almost matched by the human figures that Pratt has chosen as his heroes, William Van Horne and Sir John A. Macdonald. The two men are complementary in the poem: Macdonald, rhetorician and parliamentarian, supplies the dream of continental union; Van Horne, engineer and administrator, supplies the force and skill that makes the dream come true. The poem ends with the famous driving home of the last spike at Craigellachie: :::The stroke released the trigger for a burst :::Of sound which stretched the gamut of the air. :::The shouts of engineers and dynamiters, :::Of locomotive-workers and explorers, :::Flanking the rails, were but a tuning up :::For a massed continental chorus. When ''Towards the Last Spike'' appeared, Canadian literary critic

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symmet ...

wrote that :Pratt has shown an increasing interest in techniques of communication, an interest which may well go back to his early days as a student of psychology.... The theme of the epic act of communication in Canadian history, the linking of east and west by a great railway, was thus a logical one for Pratt to choose for his latest poem.... But while the choice of theme may have been easy, the theme itself is fantastically difficult. The poem is in the epic tradition, without any of the advantages of epic to sustain it. No narrative suspense is possible where the ground has all been surveyed; no heroic action can be isolated in so concentrated an act of social will.... The real hero of the poem is a society's will to take intelligible form; the real quest is for physical and spiritual communication within that society. I have a notion that the technical problems involved in ''Towards the Last Spike'' are going to be central problems in the poetry of the future. And I think that the ingenuity with which these problems have been met would make the poem a historical landmark even for readers who disliked it as a poem." "There would be much more to say about the poem if I had the space," Frye added. "There is the contrast between the desperate, quixotic, east-west reach from sea to sea which is the vision of Macdonald ... and the practical, short-sighted vision of Blake, which sees the country realistically, as a divided series of northern extensions of the United States.... There is the portrait of Strathcona as a Canadian culture-hero, a combination of Paul Bunyan and Sam Slick.... Above all, Pratt is a poet unusually aware of the traditional connection between poetry and oratory." He concluded: "The faults of the poem are obvious and commonplace; its virtues are subtle and remarkable." Frye later wrote that Pratt had "expressed in ''Towards the Last Spike'' the central comic theme ... of the Canadian imagination." Three years after its publication, fellow Canadian poet,

F.R. Scott Francis Reginald Scott (1899–1985), commonly known as Frank Scott or F. R. Scott, was a lawyer, Canadian poet, intellectual, and constitutional scholar. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Common ...

, critiqued Pratt for overlooking the thousands of indentured Chinese labourers who actually built the railway in his poem "All the Spikes but the Last."F.R. Scott
"All the Spikes But the Last."
" ''F.R. Scott: Selected Poems'' (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1966), 64.

References

External links

*
Corrected typescript and carbon copy of Towards the Last Spike
Digital Collections, Victoria University Library & Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Towards the Last Spike 1952 books Canadian poems Canadian Pacific Railway 1952 poems

See also

References

External links