At Melville's Tomb (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Hart Crane
- First Published: 1926
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Literature, Death or dying, Sea or seafaring life, Life, philosophy of, Tombs or graves, Cemeteries
“At Melville's Tomb” is the poem that caused Poetry editor Harriet Monroe such trouble in interpretation and called forth Crane's famous reply in which he expounded his theory of composition. The sixteen-line poem pays homage to the nineteenth century American novelist Herman Melville. In the manner of many poems by young writers addressing their forebears, it manages both to praise the older writer and to suggest that he shares the younger writer's outlook.
Crane pictures Melville as meditating on one of Crane's favored themes, the dual nature of the sea, beginning...
[The entire page is 614 words long]
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