On July 1, 1867, a fledgling nation not only experienced a geopolitical birth, but a cultural one as well. The Confederation of the newly formed Dominion of Canada included Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. With the physical and political formation of a country comes the incarnation of a certain domestic mindset, and atmosphere. This mindset strives to identify, and subsequently express, the identifying characteristics unique to the environment in question. Throughout history, in any nation or other culturally exclusive group, forms of art such as music, literature, dance, painting, sculpture, etc. have served to give a voice to national identity.
             Feeling this same need for expression of national identity, Canadians turned to such art forms, one of which was poetry. With the emergence of several young men now known as the "Confederation Poets" came a voice through which our identity could be publicly formed. The avenue through which our nation was to explore the realm of what makes us uniquely "Canadian" in the coming years was paved by these men. "What distinguished Confederation poets from other poets of their time... was this deeper awareness of the spirit residing mutually in the landscape and the self and, consequently, their attempt to create a locality in their poems that would truly reflect the spirit of the place." (Mezei, 2).
             Archibald Lampman's poetry focused primarily on the urban vs. suburban battle of landscapes, a topic which was certainly hot at the time, with the emergence of such urban centres as Toronto and Montreal in the middle of what was only a half-century ago merely "the bush". It is important to answer two central questions about Lampman's commentary on urban sprawl in his poem "The City of the End of Things". First, why did he feel the way he did and what was his intent in writing his poetry? He felt the way he did because he liv...