James+Thomson

Born in Port Glasgow, Scotland in 1834, prose writer and poet [|James Thomson B.V.] is often recognized for his accomplishments as a ‘Victorian working-class poet.’ After having endured both his family’s financial (and assumedly emotional) tragedies in childhood and a tumultuous writing career, he died an impoverished alcoholic in 1882. To distinguish his life and works from those of his predecessor and namesake—the 18th century Scottish poet [|James Thomson] —critics regularly include the initials ‘B.V.’ after his name. While Thomson adopted numerous pseudonyms throughout his writing career, ‘Bysshe Vanolis’ remains his most recognized pseudonym. ‘Bysshe Vanolis’ complimented his veneration for the Romantic poet and essayist [|Percy Bysshe Shelley], while Vanolis anagrams ‘[|Novalis] ’, an 18th century German philosopher and author (Sullivan).

Although Thomson was born into a financially-stable family, his middle-class status was short-lived; his father, the chief officer of a ship, suffered a debilitating stroke when Thomson was four, rendering him permanently disabled and unable to maintain his family’s social status (Salt). While his father’s mental stability slowly declined, Thomson’s sister died of measles and his mother, a “deeply religious woman of the Irvingite faith", died (possibly of [|dropsy] [Sullivan]) when Thomson was nine (Sullivan; Salt). In 1842, a year before his mother died, Thomson was accepted into The Royal Caledonian Asylum in London—a home and “school for the children of poor Scottish soldiers and sailors” (Thomson 3). At the age of sixteen, Thomson left the Royal Caledonian Asylum and attended the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea before “enlist[ing] as an army schoolmaster, a profession he followed until 1862” (Thomson 3). During his time as an army schoolmaster, Thomson met and befriended political activist [|Charles Bradlaugh], a famous and radical English atheist. Bradlaugh would later found the [|National Secular Society] in 1866.

With Bradlaugh’s help, Thomson published his first essay in 1858 in //The London Investigator //—a ‘free-thought’ periodical wherein ‘freethinkers’ literarily expressed the philosophical viewpoint that “thought [should be] unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition, or established belief, especially in matters of religion” (Thomson 3; "Free thought"). Despite his strict Christian upbringing and “influenced by Bradlaugh and the National Reformers, [Thomson eventually] rejected Christianity and became a pantheist", one who “identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God” (Thomson 4; "Pantheism"). Thomson decided that abiding to the Christian doctrine was no way to live life fully (Thomson 5). The ‘free-thought’ movement allowed him to literarily express his acquired pantheistic philosophy, including his optimistic belief in the “everlasting soul” (Thomson 4-5). Furthermore, Thomson wrote a plethora of blasphemous anti-Christian satires for a variety of periodicals, acquiring a devoted yet limited fan-base while inevitably discouraging the readership of a largely religious and morally sensitive Victorian public (Thomson 5).

Thomson worked a few minor clerical jobs, held a brief position as a war correspondent and published poetry and prose for a variety of periodicals including “Bradlaugh’s Atheist-Republican-Malthusian //National Reformer//” until 1874 (Thomson 5). Thereafter, he maintained employment as a full-time writer until his death (Thomson 4). Near the end of his life, Thomson finally published poetry in ‘prestigious’ periodicals, such as //Gentlemen’s Magazine //, wherein he proudly sported his real name instead of a pseudonym (Thomson 4). However, his reputation remained tarnished from years of writing ‘hack-pieces’ for lowbrow periodicals such as //Cope’s Tobacco Plant //(Thomson 1).

Eventually, Thomson’s optimistic pantheist philosophy transformed into a “bleak atheism” (Thomson 5). His poetry became more and more pessimistic, and Thomson, through a poetic speaker, declared the premise of his acquired atheistic philosophy—“there is no God”— in his most well-known poem “[|The City of Dreadful Night] ” (1874) (Thomson 5). During the latter part of his adult life, Thomson suffered from both insomnia and alcoholism. Probably influenced by his own tendency to roam the streets at night when he could not sleep, much of his poetry evokes nighttime imagery (Sullivan) [1]. The speaker in “The City of Dreadful Night,” for example, contemplates his meaningless existence while describing the morbid darkness of a city at night. While the speaker’s pessimistic mindset thwarts the city’s beauty, Thomson’s vividly sensual imagery creates an aesthetically-rich poetic experience, mirroring that of many of Thomson’s works, and foreshadowing the pessimistic overtones of Modernist writers. Unfortunately, a year before his death, a warehouse fire destroyed a plethora of Thomson’s original and republished works, making much of his work difficult (if not impossible) to find (Thomson 1-2).

<span style="color: #444444; display: block; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans L",sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: right;">--K. Fawley, UVic Engl 386/2012W <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.67px;">[1] See Sullivan’s personal take on Thomson’s “The City of Dreadful Night” in: "Poison Mixed with Gall: James Thomson's The City <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.67px;">of Dreadful Night — A Personal View.” //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Victorian Web //. [], March 2005. Web.
 * <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans L",sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Note: **

<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Free Thought.” //Dictionary.com.// <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Random House, Inc., n.d //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">. //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Web. 8 Mar. 2012.
 * <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans L",sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Works Cited **

<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Pantheism." //Oxford Dictionaries//. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Oxford University Press //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">, //April 2010. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.

<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Salt, Henry Stephens. "The Life of James Thomson ("B.V.") with a Selection from his Letters and a Study of his Writing." Reeves and Turner, 1889. Web.

<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sullivan, Dick. “A Long Defeat: A Brief Life of James Thomson (B.V.).” //The Victorian Web.// <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">[] <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">, February 2007. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.

<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thomson, James. //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery: Selected Prose of James Thomson (B.V.). //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">California: University of California Press, 1967 //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">. Google Books. //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Web.