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:

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

    There, beyond the dykes

    I heard wind flaking sapphire, like this summer,
    And willows could not hold more steady sound.
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    Stars prick the eyes with sharp ammoniac proverbs,
    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)

    subways, rivered under streets
    and rivers . . . in the car
    the overtone of motion
    underground, the monotone
    of motion is the sound
    of other faces, also underground—
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)