The 19th-century American poet’s free-verse parable about a nonsensical war reminds us that conflict rouses desire as powerfully as love
Stephen Crane’s poems are distinctive. Typically, they’re short, free-verse parables in which moral dilemmas are played out by archetypal characters. This week’s poem, Once there came a man, is the fifth in Black Riders and Other Lines, the first of Crane’s two collections. The poems in the book are untitled, and given Roman numerals, a device that adds to the biblical flavour. But if they are verses from a bible, it’s Stephen Crane’s own revisionist bible of scepticism.
When the collection appeared in 1895, critics were scathing. This work wasn’t fit to be called poetry. The New York Tribune declared it trash, but Crane was apparently pleased the book was making a stir. His fine novel about the American civil war, The Red Badge of Courage, though not yet published, had been serialised at the end of 1894, and Crane must have been confident of his artistic powers and moral vision.
More
When the collection appeared in 1895, critics were scathing. This work wasn’t fit to be called poetry. The New York Tribune declared it trash, but Crane was apparently pleased the book was making a stir. His fine novel about the American civil war, The Red Badge of Courage, though not yet published, had been serialised at the end of 1894, and Crane must have been confident of his artistic powers and moral vision.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment