Stephen Crane Flashcards
What school of literature did Crane belong to?
Naturalism
What was Crane’s profession before becoming a novelist?
Journalist (like many other proponents of Naturalism)
What are Crane’s best-known works?
- The Red-Badge of Courage (used experiences playing football to inform hugely successful war novel)
- Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (low-life New York)
What was the reception of Black Riders like?
It was very poorly received - it was seen as quirky at best and lunacy at worst. The reception was generally critical bafflement, though Crane always quite liked them.
They were seen as adolescent.
After its publication, he leaves the US and travels for a bit before dying suddenly in 1900 (in Germany).
Their unpopularity continues today. It is hard to find collections that contain them, and there isn’t really anything written about them. People are still puzzled!
When did Crane live?
1871 - 1900
When was “Black Riders” published?
1895
Who is a possible influence on Crane’s poetry?
Maybe Blake? The poems, though hard to interpret, express an interest in light and darkness, theology, and monstrosities.
Can you recite poem 3?
Probably not…
In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitter bitter," he answered; "But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart."
What’s Gavin’s pattern that many of the poems follow?
- Imagistic moment stripped down to basic conditions
- Observer and traveler in dramatic conflict
- Moment of failure/rejection/failure of language
How might we think of these as “adolescent” poems?
This was the charge many critics brought against the collection when it came out, and though it was meant as a criticism, I think there is something to it interpretively.
The poems seem to have a youthful spirit that animates them – it is tumultuous, passionate, and alternately elated and despairing. They are very full of questions with very few conclusions, and contain almost no retrospection.
What is the structure of this collection?
68 very short poems
From where does the collection take its title?
From the opening poem: “Black riders came from the sea….Thus the ride of sin.”
Black Riders do not appear in other poems, so it is hard to tell why Crane felt that this poem should open and title the collection.
What is a story told about these poems’ composition?
That Crane wrote the poems in front of a friend (Hamlin Garland), quickly and all at once.
What is a religious reading of this text?
This is probably one of the more convincing readings. Many of the poems seem to depict a vengeful, uncaring, or even absent God, and are generally very cynical about religion.
They are kind of obsessed with darkness and the end of the world (“and the fall to doom a long way”), as well as cynical and/or despairing about knowledge, love, and human nature.
Several poems seem especially interested in different opinions/views/versions of God – part of the problem is that he can be interpreted.
Crane was the son of a Methodist minister, so there could be some biographical questioning of faith going on here.
What, anecdotally, inspired Crane to write these poems?
He heard William Dean Howells reading some poems of Emily Dickinson.
Discuss the numbering system of these poems.
They are all untitled, numbered merely as Roman numerals in the text. This has the effect of making them sort of all blend together – it’s hard to distinguish between them, especially because many of them have similar themes.
What’s more, there aren’t even any easily detectable sequences. Even poems that seem thematically similar to each other aren’t next to each other in sequence.
What are some examples of the “questioning religion” poems?
- “this is my pattern of God”/differing opinions (34)
- praying for help in the desert, only to be answered by a voice claiming “it is no desert” (42)
- But ESPECIALLY the last poem (68):
Eventually, then, he screamed, Mad in denial "Ah, there is no God!" A swift hand A sword from the sky Smote him And he was dead
Recite poem #56 (it’s only 3 lines!).
A man feared that he might find an assassin
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
What significant line break is there in poem #68 (the final poem):
It breaks after the speaker declares “Ah, there is no God!” If a reader failed to turn the page, they might not see the last 4 lines, in which the speaker is smote, presumably by God.
This is not the only time that the text’s arrangement on the page has been particularly in tune with the text, which Crane is said to have been invested in setting himself. Multiple meanings may be opened up not just by the text of the poems but by the arrangement of them.
