Dream of trains in literature

Andrew IbáñezSEGUIR Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

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In the year 1830 there were three historical events: the premiere of the first railway, the first performance of Hernani of Victor Hugo , and the premiere of the Symphony fantastic Berlioz . So that 1830 marks both the start of romanticism (or the second wave, after the romanticism anglo-germanic end of the XVIII century) as the beginning of the technological world of modern. From then on, the train has since been spreading through the world, and also their symbolism and poetry. One of the many legends of the train, and one of the most curious, is that related to the death. It is exciting to see how in many of the books that treat of the life after death, as in How the dead live, the Will Self or The other side of Alfred Kubin , appears a train that takes you up there. It is the train of the dead, that in The Descent of Allette of Alice Notley is converted into a subway. And the truth is that one always feels that he is dead and that is dead when you are traveling in a subway train. I also remember a comic book from the 80’s, Transglacial, of Lob and Rochette , that is a train in which lives all mankind, and that runs without end a dead world, and ice cream, now transformed in several movies, Korean Bong Joon-Ho , Rompenieves.

I Remember the wonderful little Dream of trains Denis Johnson and the unforgettable rumble of the train of time and the river Thomas Wolfe , these epic trains of americans that do not already exist, as in the united States, the railroad, some time ago one of their national symbols, is used almost exclusively for the transport of goods. In 1844, already in its decline, poetic, W. Wordsworth wrote a sonnet, to the root of the project to put a railway between Kendal and Windermere, which begins thus: “how Is that not a corner of England that is safe / assault violent?”. In his days it was, without a doubt, the brusque remark of an older man, conservative and opposed to “progress”. Today would be a sonnet ecologist.