Hart Crane

Hart Crane

Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Finding both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that was difficult, highly stylized, and ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, The Bridge, Crane sought to write an epic poem, in the vein of The Waste Land, that expressed a more optimistic view of modern, urban culture than the one that he found in Eliot's work. In the years following his suicide at the age of 32, Crane has been hailed by playwrights, poets, and literary critics alike (including Robert Lowell, Derek Walcott, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Bloom), as being one of the most influential poets of his generation.

Read more about Hart Crane:  Life and Work, Poetics, Depictions, Bibliography

Famous quotes by hart crane:

    The intent escalator lifts a serenade
    Stilly
    Of shoes, umbrellas, each eye attending its shoe, then
    Bolting outright somewhere above where streets
    Burst suddenly in rain. . . .
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    O thou Dirigible, enormous Lounger
    Of pendulous auroral beaches,—
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    I could never remember
    That seething, steady leveling of the marshes
    Till age had brought me to the sea.
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    Bind us in time, O seasons clear, and awe.
    O minstrel galleons of Carib fire,
    Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
    Is answered in the vortex of our grave
    The seal’s wide spindrift gaze toward paradise.
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    To course that span of consciousness thou’st named
    The Open Road—thy vision is reclaimed!
    What heritage thou’st signalled to our hands!
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)