The Seagull
The seagull is an average and ordinary bird, not to mention an annoying one when it tries to steal your lunch on the beach. It's not some majestic creature like an eagle, a nasty one like a vulture...
Life in the Big City
Like Walt Whitman before him, Hart Crane found life in New York City to be exciting, stimulating, a little scary, and full of pulsing life. But Crane was writing in the 20th century, so his city is...
Freedom
Hart Crane picks up where Whitman left off in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" – using a non-religious experience to represent a state of freedom and interconnectedness between people. The Brooklyn Brid...
The Bridge as Religious Object
Like some other modernist writers, and like his 19th century forbear Walt Whitman, Crane thought religion had lost its power to move and inspire people. It had become ritual and formulaic rather th...
The Bridge as Art
Art was almost like a religion to Crane, and it served some of the same purposes. In the poem he "fuses" the language and symbols of art and religion to describe the bridge. In particular he compar...