Hart Crane

Hart Crane: Biography

Harold Hart Crane was born on July 21, 1899, in Garrettsville, Ohio. He grew up in an upper-middle-class family, as his father was a businessman in the candy industry. Crane's parents had a very difficult, unstable relationship, which colored much of his life.

Hart Crane was raised partially by his grandmother in Cleveland, Ohio. She had a vast library that inspired his literary tastes and love for reading at an early age. As a boy, Crane read the works of poets such as Robert Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walt Whitman. As a teen, he read the works of Plato, Honore de Balzac, and Percy Bysshe Shelly. Much as Crane's education came from his vociferous personal reading habits.

Due to the instability of his family, Hart Crane was often absent from school for extended periods of time. He dropped out of high school in his junior year and moved from Cleveland to New York City. Crane planned to attend Columbia University upon arriving in New York. However, he quickly abandoned that plan and threw himself into pursuing his passion for writing and literature.

In New York City, Hart Crane became involved with numerous writers and explored different artists, art movements, and ideas. He associated with important American literary figures, including Allen Tate, Katherine Anne Porter, E.E. Cummings, and Jean Toomer. During this time, he was greatly influenced by the poets and writers Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, William Butler Yeats, and James Joyce. Crane quickly found excitement and a greater sense of home in New York City.

Fig. 2 ‐ The majority of Hart Crane's poetry is set in New York City, even though he was from Ohio and spent much of his life going back and forth between New York and Cleveland.

Crane worked as an advertising copywriter and a factory worker at his father's company in New York while focusing on writing and publishing his poetry. He sold advertisements for the magazine Little Review, which highlighted Modernist writing by poets like James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. He also became involved in a periodical called Seven Arts, which was dedicated to sharing traditional American literature, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost. Both the more traditional and Modernist writings represented by Little Review and Seven Arts exerted great influence on Crane's own poetry.

1917 was a significant year for Hart Crane. Around this time, his works were being published in the local literary journal, Pagan. These poems reflected his unique combination of both traditional and experimental forms. 1917 was also the year that Crane's mother and father divorced. His mother and grandmother came to live with him in his one-bedroom apartment in New York City; meanwhile, his father pressured him to find a suitable job.

Though Crane's father was a successful businessman, he did not approve of his son's path as a poet. Crane sought escape from family troubles and pressures. He attempted to enlist in the U.S. army. However, he was rejected because he was only a minor. Crane left New York City and worked in a munitions plant until World War I ended in 1918.

After the end of World War I, Hart Crane moved between Cleveland and New York City. He worked briefly as a reporter in Cleveland but then returned to New York. His father urged him to take on jobs within the business and shipping industry, and his mother constantly relied on him for emotional support. Crane's personal struggles and conflicts mounted, and he engaged in many relationships that ended in heartbreak.

During the early 1920s, Hart Crane wrote many of the poems that would make up his first poetry book, White Buildings (1926), including "Chaplinesque" and "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen." Poems such as "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen" showed a more triumphant view of post-World War I America in an age of industrialization.

Unfortunately, Crane's personal life did not resemble this vision of triumph and positivity. His relationship with his father further broke down, his mother continued to depend on him for emotional support when he was not in a stable emotional state himself, and he took another job at an advertising agency in New York City that left him feeling purposeless. In the Fall of 1923, the poet was wracked with anxiety and escaped to Woodstock, New York, to enjoy the peace of nature and the company of a few good friends.

When Crane returned to the city, he engaged in an intense relationship with a sailor named Emil Opffer, which inspired his sequence of love poems, "Voyages" (1933). In the mid-1920s, Crane focused on writing his most notable book-length poem, "The Bridge" (1930), which was a celebration of the American experience. "The Bridge" was written somewhat as a response to T.S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land (1922), a modernist poem that expresses cynicism and lostness in the early 20th century.

In the late 1920s, Crane's relationship with Emil Opffer was disintegrating. He turned to alcohol and sex for comfort, leading him further into depression and self-destruction. Around the same time, Crane had frequent conflicts with his mother, his grandmother died, and he reconciled with his father just before he died as well.

The Bridge was published in 1930 and critics were dissatisfied with it. Crane took this to heart and it led him to further despair, seeking respite in unhealthy relationships and alcohol. He briefly lived in Paris and Mexico, but he accomplished little writing there.

Hart Crane: Death and Legacy

Hart Crane died on April 27, 1932, at the age of 32. He jumped overboard a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico on the way back to New York from Mexico. Crane had been with Peggy Baird, the wife of his friend. The two were having an affair, and Crane had been suffering from depression and mood swings. He had been drinking heavily before jumping off the ship and left no suicide note. His body was never found.

Although critics did not highly praise Crane's work at the time of its publication, Crane was admired by many of his contemporaries, including Allen Tate, Eugene O'Neill, Kenneth Bure, Edmund Wilson, E.E. Cummings, and William Carlos Williams. His long poem, The Bridge is now recognized for its uniqueness and is considered a seminal work of Modernist poetry.

Hart Crane: Collected Works

Hart Crane only published two books of poetry during his lifetime:

1. White Buildings (1926) is Crane's first collection of poetry, which consists of many modernist and lyrical poems he wrote in his early 20s. The book features the poems "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen," "Voyages," "My Grandmother's Love Letters," and "Chaplinesque." White Buildings received mixed reviews. Crane was praised for his style, which evoked that of French Romantics such as Baudelaire and Rimbaud. However, the subjects and meanings of his poems were hard to decipher.
2. The Bridge (1930) is Hart Crane's first and only attempt at a long poem. The poem is made up of 15 lyric poems that vary in form, style, meter, and diction. However, they all center around the symbol of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. Crane depicts different figures from American history, including Christopher Columbus and Pocahontas. The poet presents a positive image of his idea of the American experience, written in contrast to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Crane's collected works were published a year after his death in a book called Collected Poems (1933). A more complete edition was published in 1966 called The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose. Aside from writing poetry, Hart Crane wrote numerous poignant and earnest letters to his family, friends, and famous acquaintances.

Hart Crane: Poems

Let's take a look at two of Hart Crane's most well-known poems, "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen" (1926) and "The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge" (1930).

"For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen" by Hart Crane

Hart Crane's poem, "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen" (1926), takes characters from an Elizabethan tragedy and places them in a modern American city. Crane's poem incorporates both lyric and narrative poetry to tell a story that transfers myths and legends to contemporary America. The poem is three parts and begins with a quote from a comedy called The Alchemist (1610) by Ben Jonson to remind readers of the possibility that magic can occur in unexpected places. Crane's poem seeks to dispel notions of cynicism toward the modern age by presenting the excitement of love in urban America:

"The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge" by Hart Crane

Crane's poem, "The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge" (1930), is one of the poems that make up his notable book-length poem, The Bridge. "To Brooklyn Bridge" is an 11-stanza poem that presents the imagery of the Brooklyn Bridge during different parts of the day. The Bridge stands as a positive symbol of modernity, which evokes awe and a sense of stability and peace for the speaker. The poet starts the poem by personifying the Brooklyn Bridge and painting a picture of seagulls flying over the bridge at dawn to evoke a sense of both power and peace:

Fig. 3 ‐ Crane's poem blends natural imagery with the idea of the Brooklyn Bridge to suggest how it fits and supports its environment.

Hart Crane: Quotes

"The Broken Tower" (1932) was the last poem to be published by Hart Crane before his death. Strangely, the poem perfectly encapsulates how the poet experienced great difficulties in his brief life, yet tried to lend voice to the world around him through his poetry:

Although Hart Crane's life could easily be overshadowed by his issues with addiction to sex and alcohol, his yearning nature to aid and understand relationships was discovered through the many letters he wrote. In his poem, "My Grandmother's Love Letters" (1926), Crane writes about the discovery of his grandmother's letters after her death and reconciling his notion of her with his realization of her past. The poet expresses the nostalgia and reliance on memory for comfort: