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A Modernist's New York: Hart Crane's The Bridge and the Representation of the City

Hart Crane's depiction of New York far exceeds the other modernists' representation of the city in that it covers almost all the features of twentieth-century urban experience and treats the city as the site and sign of social reality. However, many critics in Crane studies have failed to fully appreciate the value of his works as a record and a critique of the modern industrial and economic landscape. My close reading of his poems "The Tunnel" and "Atlantis" from The Bridge focuses on his preoccupation with New York City. Like other modernists, Crane regards the city not only as a form of modern life but also as the physical embodiment of modern consciousness. However, his approach to the city is different from the others' in three ways: first, he enacts the search for modernity not by fleeing into the imagination but by directly confronting the diverse aspects of urban life. Second, his representation of the city is inseparable from his sympathy with lower-class people. Considering many criticisms of the modernist texts for their lack of lower-class characters as well as for their lack of realism, Crane's The Bridge exceptionally fulfills the project of realism to embrace social diversity within the outlines of poetic space. Last, Crane illustrates a positive vision while accepting the dark reality of the modern metropolis. Though in his text he explores isolation, indifference, and the loss of purpose and meaning, what he eventually suggests is not skeptical pessimism but transcendence and all-embracing positivity. His representation of New York helps to broaden the narrowly defined concept of modernism with a unique synthesis of redemptive imagination and a realistic criticism of the modern city.