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The Bridge (long poem)

The Bridge (long poem)

"The Bridge", first published in 1930, is Hart Crane's first, and only, attempt at an American long poem. (Its primary status as either an epic or a series of lyrical poems remains contested; recent criticism tends to read it as a hybrid, perhaps indicative of a new genre, the 'modernist epic.' [See Daniel Gabriel's "Hart Crane and the Modernist Epic" (2007) ISBN 1403974454.] )

"The Bridge" was inspired by New York City's Brooklyn Bridge, which has appeared in the work of so many poets that Poets.org named it a "poetry landmark." [See [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5754 Poetry Landmark: The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City] ] Crane lived for some time at 110 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn, where he had an excellent view of the bridge; only after "The Bridge" was finished did Crane learn that one of its key builders, Washington Roebling, had once lived at the same address. [See Paul Mariani's "The Broken Tower: A Life of Hart Crane" (1999) ISBN 0393320413.]

Contents of "The Bridge"

"The Bridge" comprises 15 short poems, arranged as follows:

* Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge ["Proem" is not a misprint for "poem," but a word meaning roughly "prelude." [See [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proem Definition of "proem" from Merriam-Webster] ] ]
* Ave Maria
* Powhatan's Daughter [section title]
** The Harbor Dawn
** Van Winkle
** The River
** The Dance
** Indiana
* Cutty Sark
* Cape Hatteras
* Three Songs [section title]
** Southern Cross
** National Winter Garden
** Virginia
* Quaker Hill
* The Tunnel
* Atlantis

Critical reception

Reviewed on publication as a 'failure' even by Crane's closest literary friends—Allen Tate and Yvor Winters—"The Bridge" has nevertheless become, at least among writers, a best-loved poem.

Harold Bloom has made his share of loving defenses of the poem [See Bloom's 'Introduction' to Marc Simon's "The Complete Poems of Hart Crane" (2000) ISBN 0-87140-178-9.] , and the increasing number of monographs on Crane suggests a new movement in the criticism—if, that is, it is not merely indicative of that critical swell across modernist studies.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15444 Text of 'To Brooklyn Bridge' (the opening poem in "The Bridge") at Poets.org]
* [http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Crane.html Video Interpretation of 'The River' (opening lines)]


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