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Analysis of Archibald Lampman's The City of the End of Things Essay

Analysis of Archibald Lampman's The City of the End of Things     Iron  Towers. Terrible flames.  Inhuman music, rising and falling.  Grim  depths and abysses, where only night holds sway and gruesome creatures crawl  before their awesome Master.  Through these disturbing images, and a  masterful adaptation of the sonnet structure, Archibald Lampman summons forth  The City of the End of Things.         The nameless City he  creates is a place of mechanical slavery and despair, where Nature cannot exist,  and human life is forfeit.  The place is a veritable Hell; no, worse than a  hell - it is Tartarus.  By evoking the name of this, the most feared of  realms in classical Mythology, Lampman roots his poem, and thus his City and  message, in Greek and Roman legend.  This is very important since, by  wrapping the poem within a mythological narrative, it automatically begins to  undermine any attempt to enforce Christian (and other) readings upon it.   It becomes important to understand exactly what is intended by the usage of  'Tartarus', and precisely how deeply it permeates the structure of the poem.       Tartarus was not just  another realm within the classical world - it was a land beyond Hades, beyond  the Underworld, lying as far below hell as the Earth lay below Heaven; is was  said that an anvil would fall for nine days before reaching it.  It was a  land of exile, a prison for those who displeased the current ruling hierarchy of  Gods and divine beings.  Uranus imprisoned his first children there; the  Titans, having overthrown their father, threw the Cyclops into Tartarus - only  to take their place once Zeus' rebellion disposed of the despotic giants.   It soon became a place of such fear that the mere threa...  ...in fact, seem insanely chaotic.  Our mindless support  of self-centred political systems, of abuse of fellow human beings of different  nationalities - it may well have appeared quite insane to him.  The poem,  therefore, delivers a strong message of warning: we must develop a stronger  awareness, a care of what is happening, lest we, the collective we - humanity,  the 'Idiot', are left in the ruins of our effort, alone,  forever.      Works Cited Grimal, Pierre.  "Tartarus"  The Dictionary of  Classical Mythology.     New York: Blackwell, 1986.   p.443. Lampman, A.  "The City of the End of Things."   Canadian Poetry:   From the Beginnings Through the First World War.   Ed. Gerson, C and Davies, G.  Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,  1994.  259-262. Tripp, Edward.  "Tartarus"  Crowll's Handbook of  Classical Mythology.  New York: Crowell, 1970.  p.545.