SOURCE: "A Poetics for 'The Bridge '," in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 26, No. 3, Fall, 1980, pp. 278-93.

In the following essay, Ramsey argues that readers must have a clear idea of the poetics of The Bridge in order to appreciate Crane's genius.

The criticism of Hart Crane's The Bridge has generally dealt out the opinion that Crane was, as James Russell Lowell called Shakespeare, "an inspired idiot." No one can be satisfied with the poem, but no one can let it alone either; no one (almost) can find the large truth in it that Crane claims to have attempted, and yet most readers find intermittent excellence, calling it with Allen Tate "a collection of lyrics, the best of which are not surpassed by anything in American literature."¹ The designation of the poem as a failure rests on the imputation of a "myth" or "vision" structure for The Bridge, an...