Crane, Hart
Crane, Hart ( Harold Hart Crane ) ( 1899 – 1932 ),American poet, born in Ohio. He published two volumes of verse, White Buildings ( 1926 ) and The Bridge ( 1930 ), the latter an obscure but powerful work which explores the ‘Myth of America’, with many echoes of Whitman ; its national symbols include Brooklyn Bridge itself, invoked in its Proem, and such historical and legendary characters as Columbus, Rip Van Winkle , Pocahontas , who, the poet explains, is the ‘mythological nature-symbol chosen to represent the physical body of the continent, or the soul’. Crane was an alcoholic, and committed suicide by jumping from a steamer in the Caribbean after spending some time in Mexico. His Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose, ed. B. Weber , appeared in 1960 , and his correspondence with Y. Winters was published in 1978 .
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