Stephen
Crane (USA)
1871-1900
Born
in Newark, New Jersey in 1871, Stephen Crane was the fourteenth child of
Reverend Jonathan Crane. Both of his parents were highly religious leaders in
the Methodist Church, and over the years one of Crane’s most noted traits was
his rebellion against his religious upbringing.
As
a teenager he worked at a news agency run by his brother, and later left for
college with the goal of becoming a reporter. He published his first novel, Maggie:
A Girl of the Streets, in a private printing and under a pseudonym in 1893.
The novel attracted the attention of critics such as William Dean Howells and
Hamlin Garland, who later championed his novel The Red Badge of Courage,
published in 1895.
The same year, Crane published his first
book of poetry, The Black Riders and Other Lines, again privately
printed. The typography of this book was unusual, in that the poems appeared
entirely in capital letters without titles or punctuation. Reviewers of the
time—and some later critics—heaped abuse on his poetry, describing them as
“garbage,” “rot,” and “lunatic.” But the success of his novel of the same year,
along with the reaction, made him internationally famous.
Personally, Crane claimed to like his
poetry much better than The Red Badge of Courage. Over the next years,
Crane devoted himself to journalism and wrote numerous short stories, including
the brilliant tale, “The Open Boat.” His work as a reporter during the
Greco-Turkish War of 1897, however, led to ill health, and in 1899 he was
diagnosed with tuberculosis. The same year he moved with his common-law wife,
Cora Taylor, to an unheated English manor-house outside of Rye. Most of his
time he spent feverously writing, but Crane did develop literary friendships
with figures such as Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford and H. G. Wells. While in
England, he published his second collection of poetry, War Is Kind. His
tuberculosis, however, had worsened, and in 1900, at the age of 28, he died in
a German sanatorium.
Recently interest in Crane has resurged with the publication of Paul Auster’s study of him, Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane and Edmund White’s fantasy novel Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel about a fiction penned by Crane concerning a boy prostitute which Crane supposedly composed and later destroyed.
BOOKS
OF POETRY
The
Black Riders and Other Lines (Boston: Copeland and Day, 1895); War
Is Kind (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1899); Collected Poems (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1930).
From
The Black Riders
I
BLACK
RIDERS CAME FROM THE SEA.
THERE
WAS CLANG AND CLANG OF SPEAR AND SHIELD,
AND
CLASH AND CLASH OF HOOF AND HEEL,
WILD
SHUTS AND THE WAVE OF HAIR
IN
THE RUSH UPON THE WIND:
THUS
THE RIDE OF SIN.
XXIV
I
SAW A MAN PURSUING THE HORIZON
ROUND
AND ROUND THEY SPED.
I
WAS DISTURBED AT THIS;
I
ACCOSTED THE MAN.
“IT
IS FUTILE,” I SAID,
“YOU
CAN NEVER ———“
“YOU
LIE,” HE CRIED,
AND
RAN ON.
XXXVI
I
MET A SEER.
HE
HELD IN HIS HANDS
THE
BOOK OF WISDOM.
“SIR,”
I ADDRESSED HIM,
“LET
ME READ.”
“CHILD——“
HE BEGAN.
“SIR,”
I SAID,
“THINK
NOT THAT I AM A CHILD,
“FOR
ALREADY I NOW MUCH
“OF
WHAT WHICH YOU HOLD.
“AYE,
MUCH.”
HE
SMILED.
THEN
HE OPENED THE BOOK.
AND
HELD IT BEFORE ME.—
STRANGE
THAT I SHOULD HAVE GROWN SO SUDDENLY BLIND.
XLII
I
WALKED IN A DESERT.
AND
I CRIED,
“AH,
GOD, TAKEN ME FROM THIS PLACE!”
A
VOICE SAID, “IT IS NO DESERT.”
I
CRIED, “WELL, BUT——
“THE
SAND, THE HEAT, THE VACANT HORIZON.”
A
VOICE SAID, “IT IS NO DESERT.”
(from
Black Riders and Other Lines, 1895)
from
War Is Kind
[I]
Do
not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because
your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
and
the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do
not weep.
War
is kind.
Hoarse,
booming drums of the regiment
Little
souls who thirst for fight,
These
men were born to drill and die
The
unexplained glory flies above them
Great
is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom———
A
field where a thousand corpses lie.
Do
not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because
your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged
at his breast, gulped and died,
Do
not weep.
War
is kind.
Swift,
blazing flag of the regiment
Eagle
with crest of red and gold,
These
men were born to drill and die
Point
for them the virtue of slaughter
Make
plain to them the excellence of killing
And
a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother
whose heart hung humble as a button
On
the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do
not weep.
War
is kind.
(from
War Is Kind, 1899)
[VI]
I
explain the silvered passing of a ship at night,
The
sweep of each sad lost wave,
The
dwindling boom of the steel ting’s striving,
The
little cry of a man to a man,
A
shadow falling across the greyer night,
And
the sinking of the small star;
Then
the waste, the far waste of waters,
And
the soft lashing of black waves
For
long and in loneliness.
Remember,
thou, O ship of love,
Thou
leavest a far waste of waters,
And
the soft lashing of black waves
For
long and in loneliness.
(from
War Is Kind, 1899)
[XI]
On
the desert
A
silence from the moon’s deepest valley.
Fire
rays fall athwart the robes
Of
hooded men, squat and dumb.
Before
them, a woman
Moves
to the blowing of shrill whistles
And
distant thunder of drums,
While
mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible color,
Sleepily
fondle her body
Or
move at her will, swishing stealthily over the sand.
The
snakes whisper softly;
The
whispering, whispering snakes,
Dreaming
and swaying and staring,
But
always whispering, softly whispering.
The
wind streams from the lone reaches
Of
Arabia, solemn with night,
And
the wild fire makes shimmer of blood
Over
the robes of the hooded men
Squat
and dumb.
Bands
of moving bronze, emerald, yellow,
Circle
the throat and the arms of her,
And
over the sands serpents move warily
Slow,
menacing and submissive,
Swinging
to the whistle and drums,
The
whispering, whispering snakes,
Dreaming
and swaying and staring,
But
always whispering, softly whispering.
The
dignity of the accursed;
The
glory of slavery, despair, death,
Is
in the dance of the whispering snakes.
(from
War Is Kind, 1899)
[XXI]
A
man said to the universe:
“Sir,
I exist!”
“However,”
replied the universe,
“The
fact has not created in me
“A
sense of obligation.”
(from
War Is Kind, 1899)
A
man adrift on a slim spar
A
man adrift on a slim spar
A
horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle
Tented
waves rearing lashy dark points
The
near whine of froth in circles.
God
is cold.
The
incessant raise and swing of the sea
And
growl after growl of crest
The
sinkings, green, seething, endless
The
upheaval half-completed
God
is cold.
The
seas are in the hollow of The Hand;
Oceans
may be turned to a spray
Raining
down through the stars
Because
of a gesture of pit toward a babe.
Oceans
may become grey ashes,
Die
with a long moan and a roar
Amid
the tumult of the fishes
And
the cries of the ships,
Because
The Hand beckons the mice.
The
horizon smaller than a doomed assassin’s cap,
Inky,
surging tumults
A
reeling, drunken sky and no sky
A
pale hand sliding from a polished spar.
God
is cold.
The
puff of a coat imprisoning air.
A
face kissing the water-death
A
weary slow sway of a lost hand
And
the sea, the moving sea, the sea.
God
is cold.
(from
Collected Poems, 1930)
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