“… of Night, but not of Sleep” James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night

JAMES (BV) THOMSON'S insomnia is well documented. Bertram Dobell's memoir of the poet makes several mentions of it, as do critics of his work such as Robert Crawford, Edwin Morgan, and William Sharpe. Although widely acknowledged and noted as a significant biographical detail by critics, Thomson's insomnia has not been examined in terms of its relation to the specifically apocalyptic tone in some of his work. It is this curious relationship and its implications for the reading of his long poem The City of Dreadful Night which form the focus of this paper.