The Broken Tower | The Broken Tower

At a glance:

Author: Paul Mariani
First Published: 1999
Type of Work: Literary biography
Time of Work: 1899-1932
Setting: Cleveland and Akron, Ohio; New York City; Washington, D.C.; Isle of Pines; London; Paris; Marseilles; Mexico City
Principal Characters: Harold Hart Crane, Clarence Arthur Crane, Grace Edna Hart Crane, Emil Opffer, Jr., Otto Kahn, Yvor Winters, William Carlos Williams
Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography
Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, France or French people, Gay men, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Authors or writers, New York City, Midwest, Ohio, Poetry or poets, Paris, 1910’s, 1920’s, 1930’s, London, Mexico or Mexicans
Locales: New York, NY, Paris, France, Washington, D.C., London, England, Cleveland, OH, Akron, OH, Mexico City, Mexico, Marseilles, France, Isle of Pines

To understand Hart Crane’s work, it is necessary first to appreciate that he was homosexual and, second, to realize what it meant to be homosexual in the United States in the early twentieth century. Three Crane biographies that precede The Broken Tower—Philip Horton’s Hart Crane: The Life of an American Poet (1937), Brom Weber’s Hart Crane: A Biographical and Critical Study (1948), and John Unterecker’s massive Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane (1969)—are valuable in their own rights, but all the authors deal only obliquely with the salient question...

The Broken Tower | The Broken Tower

At a glance:

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