The Wine Menagerie (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Hart Crane
- First Published: 1926
- Type of Work: Ode
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry, Ode
- Subjects: Children, Fear, Alcohol, Creative process, Drinking or drunkenness, Bible, biblical imagery, or biblical symbolism, Visions, epiphanies, or revelations, Wine or wine making, Roses
The Poem
“The Wine Menagerie” is a convoluted and disjointed attempt to describe the generative capacity of alcohol to spark creativity. It is divided into eleven stanzas of somewhat irregular rhyme; the final three form a kind of self-colloquy.
Hart Crane begins the poem on an almost fatalistic note coupled with an illusion about the redemptive quality of liquor (Crane was himself an alcoholic). When he gets drunk, the same things “invariably” happen. Wine gives him a fresh vision, he claims. He perceives an image of poetic feet in the line of mustard jars...
[The entire page is 1344 words long]
See Also:
Hart Crane (Cyclopedia of World Authors)Hart Crane (Poetry)Hart Crane (Dictionary of World Biography)
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