Last Man and Post-Apocalyptic Scenarios

The first thing I noticed (other than the fact that men named Thomas have a strange propensity to write 'Last Man' poems) is that there are a number of highly contrastive ways to approach a poem about the end of mankind. The two in particular that stood out to me were Campbell and Beddoes' poems. The approaches could not be more starkly different. Beddoes' 'Last Man' rages against the end of the world, refusing to go quietly. He also makes the interesting point that he is truly the destroyer of death, as once he dies, death itself will no longer exist because nothing will be left to die. It must be presumed that it is death to which the narrator is speaking, since as the last man on earth, no one else would be around to receive his words. Jill had mentioned in class that she thought this theme resonated with the words found on Harry Potter's parents' tombstone- "And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death", and I think that definitely rings true here. Once man has exhausted its capacity to live and survive and wipes itself out, death too will be destroyed. 

On the other hand, we are also presented with Campbell's 'Last Man', who is far removed from Beddoes'. It seems that Campbell's narrator is much more resigned to dying as the last of his kind, and goes so far to insinuate that this is a good thing- I get the sense that he is tired of evil, and war, and depravity, and it is his responsibility "To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste". He is not speaking to death, but rather to the Sun, as the last witness to the destruction of mankind. 

What also struck me is that neither of these poems follow the typical post-apocalyptic model--i.e., the entire storyline being predicated on survival. Perhaps it is because we are lacking context and don't know how the world got to the point that man became extinct. Take something post-apocalyptic like "The Walking Dead" or "I am Legend"--the story revolves around a small band of survivors (or in Will Smith's case, a lone survivor) doing everything they can to find salvation and stay alive. "I am Legend" even goes so far as to have its protagonist working on a cure to reverse the effects of the plague that wiped out mankind as we know it. I think it is almost more poignant that in these poems, the narrators recognize and even embrace the inevitable, viewing their deaths as a positive thing--to one, his death means that death itself will be destroyed, and to the other, it means that the scourge of mankind is gone from the earth and grief will be gone forever.