Crane: Prose and Poetry

His prose is excellent, but his poetry (the black riders / war is kind) is what stays with me. The striking images, dark humor and subversive fight against authority bring me back to the book decade after decade. These aren't Shakespearean sonnets; if he was born a hundred years later he would be channeling his raw feelings into writing lyrics for Rage Against the Machine. His poetry seems so modern it is hard to reconcile it with the completely different feel of The Red Badge of Courage and his splendid Spanish American War reporting.

This volume contains all of Crane's major writings. I believe it is fair to say that it is 'The Red Badge of Courage' that gives Crane his place in the American pantheon. This is arguably the finest war novel ever written by an American. Its imaginative construction of the inner conflict of a young dreamer when confronted with the reality of battle-and the redemptive aftermath is a tautly and beautifully written realistic , moral drama. Its perception of the part imagination plays in our apprehension of reality connects it with a long tradition of the novel from 'Quixote' to ' Lord Jim'. Crane like Keats was a literary fire that burned briefly but deeply and intensely.