Hart Crane Summary

Biography EssayThe years immediately preceding World War I saw the introduction of international modernism to America, and the years immediately following saw American artists in all the arts adopting... Read more

Like many other American writers of the twenties Hart Crane visited France. Crane's stay, which lasted from early January to mid-July 1929, was briefer than most. The poet had hoped that France would ... Read more

In the following essay, Frank discusses the ways in which Crane represents the quintessential poet of modern America. A Agrarian America had a common culture, which was both the fruit and the carri... Read more

In the following essay, Chaffin contends that The Bridge is most properly read as exemplary of representations of the sublime in American literature. To his critics, Hart Crane remains an inspired ... Read more

In the following essay, Schultz considers the use Crane made of the works T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman in writing The Bridge. Hart Crane composed The Bridge during the seven years between 1923 and ... Read more

In the following essay, Irwin focuses on the question of self and national origin in the "Indiana " section of The Bridge. Several years ago I published a book called American Hierogl... Read more

In the following essay, Slote defends The Bridge against critical charges of lacking structure, noting in particular Crane's own assertion that the poem is symphonic in structure rather than ad... Read more

In the following essay, Butterfield attempts to account for the disunity within The Bridge by examining the circumstances surrounding its composition. I am perfectly sure that [The Bridge] will be... Read more

In the following essay, Schwartz explains the fragmentation of The Bridge by discussing the ways in which Crane's temperament and training were actually unsuitable to the writing of such a poem... Read more

In the following essay, Cowley explains what he sees as two different ways to read The Bridge: "integrationists, " who assert that the poem has a unified plot and vision, and "dis... Read more

In the following commentary, which was written in 1948 but not published until 1996, Empson, Heringman, and Unterecker analyze the "consanguinity" of the narrator's lover and the ... Read more