Crane, Hart (1899-1932), was an American poet best known for his complex work The Bridge (1930). Crane used the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City as his major symbol of the meaning and texture of modern life in the United States. Crane incorporated history, geography, and technology into an abstract, mythological vision of America’s past, present, and future.
In The Bridge, Crane interwove legendary figures from American history with modern inventions. For example, he portrayed Rip Van Winkle as a passenger on a New York City subway. The subway itself is a vehicle that carries the reader backward into America’s past and forward into a vision of the future. Although Crane was optimistic about life in the United States, his poem shows his awareness of the problems created by an industrial society. Crane completed one other book of poems during his lifetime, White Buildings (1926). His Complete Poems and Selected Letters (2006) was published by the Library of America in 2006.
Harold Hart Crane was born on July 21, 1899, in Garrettsville, Ohio. He had an unhappy personal life and died by suicide on April 27, 1932, at the age of 32.
