Hart Crane (1899 – 1932)

Harold was his actual name, Hart was his mother’s maiden name (Grace Hart).

1st poet of modernist lyricism - Wallace Stevens.

2nd poet of modernist lyricism - Hart Crane.

 Crane is similar to Plath in a sense that she also remained ‘frozen’ in her 30ies in just one kind of
poetry.
 Similar to Keats in a sense that both had sudden burst of poetry that lasted a couple of years.
However Keats had more rounded development as a poet, while Crane is more of a hit or miss.
He is sometimes deliberately obscure and convoluted, wants to say a lot of things but doesn’t
say anything. Crane’s lyricism is unparalleled. He had greatest raw literary talent, but didn’t get
to shape it.

Influences:

American and English romanticism.

Walt Whitman – learned a lot from him
Herman Melville – sometimes takes the words that Melville made up and uses them.
Percy Byshe Shelley - Robert Lowell compared Crane and Shelley in his ‘’Life Studies’’ where he
writes that ‘’Crane is a Shelley of our age’’. They are both obsessed with sea. Crane’s Voyages,
Shelley’s Ode to West Wind, Adonais, Alastor. They both died by the sea.
Edgar Alan Poe, Stephen Marlowe – mystical tradition
Early poems were socially minded ,talks about American reality, influence of Elizabethans,
Shakespeare , Marlowe, Metaphysical poets, doesn’t have a lot of formal education but reads a
lot.

Crane appreciated Eliot’s talent, but didn’t like the Wasteland - hated the pessimism (as William Carlos
Williams did).He thought that Eliot brings back Academia to poetry instead of focusing on folk
tradition ,Crane also dislikes the tome and atmosphere.

Because of the New Criticism established by Eliot, only in the 1950s Crane was acknowledged as the
great author by Bicknics and Ginsberg generation. He was taken as a ‘’cautionary tale’’(you shouldn’t
behave the way Crane does). Allen Ginsberg after his triumphant reading wrote ‘how great it is to be
great like Hart Crane’. Harold Bloom was the first one who put Crane in his rightful place as a continuary
of the mystic tradition, visionary tradition. He called him Orphic poet (alluding to Greek mythological
figure- Orpheus who was the greatest poet of them all). Northrop Frye recognized Crane’s talent, as well
as Stevens’ talent which he saw as more than ironic poser. Reevaluation of them poets in the second
part of the century. When Eliot’s influence diminishes.

1917-1921: wondering around America, working for advertising company, couch-surfing

1926- White Buildings - collection of poems depicting urban environment, urban spaces (skyscrapers,
cars) several important poems:
  Chaplinesque,
 Black Tambourine – ABCB , quatrains, basic and formal, no strict rhytm or meter but it is not in
free verse. Tackles issues of race. Crane was interested in this kind of social criticism, while
William Carlos Williams wasn’t , he was more interested in an issues of poverty etc., Wallace
Stevens wrote about ideas and imagination not about society)
 For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen - Central poem (first important poem) - Urban
environment in which the mythology is explored. Helen is the symbol of absolute beauty and
art; Faustus is himself (Crane) ; they meet in the street car, which is symbol of connection,
transportation from the past to the present, something that connects the age of myth and
urban age. They meet in a street car but they don’t talk, they don’t introduce themselves, only
their eyes meet. In Marlowe play Faustus and Helen, when Faustus kisses the Helen he is
doomed.
 Voyages I, II, III, IV, V, VI - (concluding sextet in this collection of poems) Influences: Elizabethan
influence> it reads as a sonnet; Edmund Spencer> Amoretti; Romanticism> Romantic cycles of
poems>Lucy poems(because of the Roman numbers it seems as if it was a sequel but it is not.
No particular order, one idea that moves about in all poems) .As a gay man in 1920s in
America,he doesn’t have a lot of options, he is not really part of artistic community, so he is
basically relegated to cruising for casual encounters with various menial workers. He meets Emil
Opffer, Danish Sailor, brief but passionate affair, couple of months. Summer 1923 - Winter 1923,
commercial sailor, traveling to S. America, wanted for Crane to join him to do some accounting,
but it never happened. Caribbean setting, imagining relationship, spiritual journey, as the
voyages around the Caribbean, he went to grandama’s plantation to finish the poems. Lyrical
poems, visionary poems, quite difficult to understand, weird way of using metaphors, more
interested I the sound f the words than in the meaning of the words (Silken skilled
transmemberment of soul), deliberately a lot of alliteration with the sound |s|, throughout the
poem |f|, |sh|, |ZH|, imitating the sound of the waves of the ocean. Power of association,
enjoys the sounds of words. Usually when we have metaphor A>B (A exchanges for B, brought
together AB) Logic of metaphor – A>B=C
 At Melville’s Tomb - dedicated to Melville and his writing. When he submitted it to Harriet
Monroe, editor of Poetry, in the summer of 1926, she invited him , by letter, to explain the
poem’s figures ; in response Crane defended not only the poems metaphors in particular but
also his theory of the logic of metaphor in general.

General Aims and Theories – ‘’motivation of the poem must be derived from the implicit emotional
dynamics of the materials used and expressions employed are often selected less for their logical
significance than for their associational meanings […] via this and their metaphorical interrelationships
the entire construction of the poem is raised on the organic principle of logic of metaphor which
antedates on pure logic which is general basis of all speech hence consciousness and thought. ‘’ Logic of
metaphor-- have their own logic, they don’t have to rely on anything linguistic. Crane is trying to be
logical by being illogical.

1930 The Bridge – the best work, most famous, a bit uneven, purely lyrical, brings him recognition,
praise. Great 20th century epic. Dedicates it to Brooklyn Bridge. Bridge is a metaphor for connection and
division, it can be about a metaphor itself - connects various words, expressions and phrases and trying
to put them together. Bridge itself is an image of sees as American materialism, American spiritualism.
Writes about city, native Americans. Bridge itself was a strange project it took a lot of years to finalize
for the architect John Washington to actually make people realize that such a project could be done.
While Crane was working on The Bridge he was living in a flat which oversaw the bridge, the same flat in
where the architect was living when the bridge was being constructed. A lot of people died while
constructed (a lot of sacrifice). Several parts:

1. Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge – introductory poem, muse is the bridge itself. Influence of Whitman’s
writing. Romanticism> Cables of the bridge look like stings of the harp. Even though he is against
Eliot’s pessimism it doesn’t mean that he does not acknowledges bad things in the world. Has
beauty in this world. Ends poem by talking to the bridge.
2. Ave Maria – ship of the Columbus that he set to the new world. Going back to early colonists,
bridging the history.
3. Powhatan's Daughter – song about Pocahontas write about the girl, dancing naked. Several parts:
 The Harbor Dawn (song about two lovers, rhapsodic, sing-song elements, comprised of a lot
of elements that work together),
 Van Winkle (American legends, Rip Van Winkle and how he would awaken now in this time,
and how he wouldn’t be qualified for anything, he imagines him walking through the New
York sweeping districts)
 The River (Mississippi expands through the continent, isn’t seen as sth that truly connects
the land, but is seen as sth that tourists who sit on a train just look at, sth nice to have
breakfast next to, but they don’t see it as sth as part of themselves)
 The Dance (ritual dance)
 Indiana (talking about movement across the continents, native Americans, white woman
with baby in her arms moving to America, goes back to see what went wrong in history)
4. Cutty Stark- drunk salior

5. Cape Hatteras - vision of Whitman, asks him to help him to sing, talking about the sky, dream of
flight, planes, but later on used as the machine of war, sky is seen as contaminated.

6. Three songs: images of three women, prostitute, stripper and office worker who has to defy
advances of the boss .These three modern women represent three mythical women- Eve, Mary
Magdalene and Virgin Mary.
 Southern cross
 National Winter garden
 Virginia
7. Quaker Hill – Quakers were Christian religious sect emphasizing brotherhood, harmony, unity, no
machinery. What remains of that is just name (e.g. Quaker kitchen cupboards) Ideals of the past
and reality of the present. Quote: I love the ideals, but no ideal has ever come true.
8. The Tunnel – Underground, people moved their travels underground, reminiscent of the In the
Station of the Metro. Modern inferno.
9. Atlantis – optimism comes, just like Dante, modern hell, you need to go to hell to be able to
resurface. Famous lost city, utopia, he thinks that we can find it again, looks at the bridge and it
again. He brings together history and modern time, nature and civilization. Theme of quest> looking
for something. He had trouble writing it. Some people reacted favorably to this poem some didn’t .