Crane, Mayakovsky, Wilson and the Brooklyn Bridge Poems

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most iconic engineering feats in New York City. Construction started in 1869 and it took fourteen years for the bridge to be finished, opening in 1893. The building of the bridge proved to be dangerous, claiming the lives two dozen people and cost $15 millions dollars in that time, which equates to about $320 million today. The bridge spans over New York City’s East River and connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. A German immigrant, John Roebling, who he died during the construction phase, originated the idea for the bridge. The bridge stretches a total length of 5,989 feet and the span between the large towers measure 1,595.5 feet, which at the time made the Brooklyn Bridge the world’s largest suspension bridge.

Bridge During Construction:

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/05/22/130_years_of_brooklyn_bridge_photos_decade_by_decade.php

Hart Crane: ‘To Brooklyn Bridge’

Crane (1889-1932) was an American poet who came to New York from Cleveland, Ohio. His poetry became known for being ecstatic and his use of rhetorical verse. His poem, ‘To Brooklyn Bridge’ is a prelude to a longer poem entitled, ‘The Bridge.’ The poems were inspired by experiences he had while living in Brooklyn Heights in an apartment with a view of the bridge in the distance. Crane described his location adjacent to the bridge in a 1924 letter to his family, describing the bridge as ‘the most superb piece of construction in the modern world.’ His works regarding the Brooklyn Bridge was both inspired and provoked by the work of TS Elliot, in particular ‘The Wasteland.’ Crane’s work aimed to be more optimistic regarding modern and urban culture. Elliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ holds a negative view on modern culture and the reason he wrote the poem was because he believed modern people simply did not care about and were not passionate about anything. He intentionally made the poem hard to follow, with many different speakers and references to classic literature, almost challenging readers to read further if they do not understand a reference. 

TS Elliot’s ‘The Wasteland’: http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html

In ‘To Brooklyn Bridge’ Crane is speaking to the bridge, admiring it from afar because of its immense size and beauty. He notes how the sun hits the bridge and admires the way the bridge seems to hang free in the air. A person runs to the top of one of the towers, pauses for a moment and then jumps to their death. Crane discusses an obscurity the bridge possesses. The bridge seems to represent the anonymity of people and, much like time, makes them feel small and anonymous. This explains why the identity of the person who jumps is not noted (gender, age etc.) and they are just a stranger seen from afar. As night falls on the bridge, Crane sees the lights on the bridge as endless, again drawing a parallel to the bridge and the passage of time, comparing the bridge to an eternity. Throughout the poem, Crane uses many religious symbols, calling the bridge ‘obscure as that Heaven of the Jews’ in reference to a mysterious heaven in Jewish scriptures. He also ends the poem asking the bridge ‘of the curveship lend a myth to God,’ meaning to descend a level and fill a gap God has left.

Vladimir Mayakovsky: Brooklyn Bridge

Mayakovsky (19893-1930) was a Russian poet and member of the Social Democratic Labour Party. As a child, he was dismissed from grammar school and spent time in prison due to political activities with the Labour Party. His early poetry showed him to be an originator of a writing style called Russian Futurism, which rejected traditional elements of poetry to favor experimentation. Mayakovsky’s works lacked a traditional metrical structure and he rather relied on forceful rhythms and street language that was viewed as not poetic at the time. He wrote the poem in 1925 while visiting the United States. He viewed himself as being ‘larger than life’ and in his writing is saluting the bridge as an equal, from one large force to another.

He begins the poem by marveling at the physical size and beauty of the bridge. He compares himself to a devout religious follower entering a great church, humbled by what he sees. He also feels like a conqueror and feels ‘drunk with power’ and ‘clambers with pride’ when he set foot on the bridge. He feels a sense of great pride when thinking of the bridge, which is sort of odd seeing that he is not a native of the US but is from Russia. He is so in awe that he goes as far as saying that if the world was to end, the bridge would not only survive and withstand the world ending but be the influence in future people recreating the modern world. He goes into a darker area of his writing, referencing the many people that come to the bridge to commit suicide. This is interesting because in the first few lines he writes ‘I too will spare no words about good things’ and intends to write only good things about the bridge. He sees future generations acknowledging the bridge where he was inspired to write his greatest work as he see the bridge as place of great inspiration.

Edmund Wilson: The Finale at the Follies and Thoughts of Leaving New York for New Orleans

Edmund Wilson, born in New Jersey on May 8, 1895, had a formal education, which was gained through attending prep school and Princeton. At Princeton he befriended F. Scott Fitzgerald. They were lifelong friends and Wilson even edited his final books, ''The Last Tycoon'' and ''The Crack-Up''. He would go on to review books for Vanity Fair. Edmund Wilson was the first person to review Hemmingway. He believed Hemmingway’s work to be a ''distinctively American development in prose.'' Hemingway declared that Wilson's opinion was the only one ''in the States I have any respect for''. He went from there to be the literary editor of the New Republic sharing his concern of culture with his readers. This is where our two texts come from. Once the depression hit, Edmund Wilson turned to political topics. This led to his travel of various countries and production of one of his most famous works, ''To the Finland Station''. It looked at the different views of how society should be ran in Europe. Wilson then joined the New Yorker and a few years later was confronted on writing his views on the ongoing war (WWII), which he was completely against the US joining, let alone the ways they acted. He focused on this for years to follow. When the Cold War started, again he was against the one up way of America. He even refused to pay federal taxes at the time to prove a point. He wrote a book on the topic and explained he was not paying for America wanting to impose democracy. He actually received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Kennedy in 1968 (Johnson, however, performed the ceremony) and acquitted some of his tax evasion charges. He went on to teach at Wesley University. He died on June 12, 1972.

The Finale at the Follies is a description of a dress rehearsal of the finale for musical that is set in Mexico. From the scenery (mission and cactuses) and from the costumes (sombreros). The text is a typical newspaper description.

The Thoughts of Leaving New York for New Orleans(1926) is also an account of what Wilson sees, but set in poetry. Every stanza is a different scene from different types of New Yorkers and areas of New York on a typical winter night. Each stanza includes less than three sentences. He points of every walk of life actions/thoughts that others would not know in the beginning. Wilson injects a line of about the scenery vague every now and then. The second half is descriptions of specific places and their residence. The first part of this half is the actions of these people and the second is how everyone is contradicting themselves or others.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/books/review/04TOIBIN.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Wilson#.22Edmund_Wilson_Regrets....22

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think Crane succeeded in writing a poem more optimistic then Elliot's? Why, do you think, if he was trying to sound optimistic, would he include the anonymity of a stranger committing suicide?

2. What do the religious symbols add to the poem and what do they say about the Brooklyn Bridge itself?

3. What effect does the format of the text of Mayakovsky's poem have? Why do you think Mayakovsky wrote his poem in this style?

4. Why do you think Mayakovsky would express such pride in an American engineering feat when he himself was Russian?

5. Why, if promising only good words in the opening lines, does Mayakovsky (and Crane, for that matter) reference the suicides that occurred on the bridge?

6. Why do you believe Wilson wrote The Thoughts of Leaving New York for New Orleans as a poem, unlike his other review?

7. What problem(s) do you believe he was trying to highlight?

8. Do you think Wilson favored a set of people? (Remember he was a close friend of Fitzgerald)

9. What was Wilson's motive for the title?

Greenwich Village Writers: Barnes and Millay

Djuna Barnes

Djuna Barnes, born on June 12, 1892 in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, was home schooled by her father, and did not receive a formal education until her early twenties. At that time, in 1912, she moved to New York City and became a student of Pratt Institute. There she became a writer an illustrator of the Brooklyn Eagle, in which she wrote mostly feature interviews and articles. In 1915, she enrolled in the Art Students League and she also published her first work, which was a collection of her writings and drawings, titled The Book of Repulsive Women.

In 1921, Barnes made a trip to Paris and wrote articles for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Charm, and multiple others of the sort. Two year later, in 1923, she published another collection of her works, this time simply titled A Book. Barnes remained in Paris for nearly twenty more years after this, where she became part of a group of women that soon became known as 'The Academy of Women,' but later as 'The Literary Women of the Left Bank.' Barnes later wrote about this group in a satirical work called Ladies Almanack. She also wrote Nightwood, arguably her greatest work, in 1936 while in Paris.

By the time of her death in 1982, she had moved back to the United States to live in Greenwich Village, where she wrote very little. She did, however, publish a verse drama, called The Antiphon in 1958. After her death, Creatures in an Alphabet and Smoke, and Other Early Stories were found a published. Barnes had just turned ninety when she died.

Source: Djuna Barnes Biography

"Come into the roof garden, Maud" was written in Barnes' days before Paris, and after her formal schooling. Within this piece, she writes about the seemingly strange craze of roof gardens and the people that inhabit them. She goes on to describe said people, noticing that all of them are far too obsessed with the way that they look and are viewed by others to truly have fun at such an event.

Barnes directs most of her attention to the women of the event, stating multiple things about quite a few. For one, she mentions how a woman will pick at any food she is given, leave to dance, then return as if expecting it to be gone. Such a women would essentially ignore all attractions of food, even though Barnes is sure that she must be starving. She also points out the woman that is seemingly only concerned with what the man she is with is doing.

She then goes on to write about the illogical woman, and how unsurprising she finds it. Barnes writes of the woman, who wonders why they are not on the roof, though they are. The woman is mistaken, clearly thinking that, since she cannot see the sky, they must not yet be on the roof. Barnes then realizes that the woman is confused because, had women been the sole creators of the roof gardens, an artificial roof would not exist. The women, so obsessed with talking, they would be happy to just sit under their own little umbrellas.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Millay was born in Rockland, Maine in 1892 and lived until 1950. She produced sixteen poetry collections during her lifetime as well as six plays. After she graduated from Vassar College she moved to New York City which most likely influenced the settings of her poems. Her first major poem was “Renascence” which she entered into a poetry contest in The Lyric Year. Her poem got fourth place, but Orrick Johns (The first place winner) felt that Millay’s’ poem was better. The second place winner even offered to give her the prize money.

Recuerdo

The poem that we read was first published in May of 1919. The title of the poem fittingly represents the sentiment of the subject. ‘Recuerdo’ in Spanish means ‘I remember’, and throughout this poem the speaker recalls events that took place between her and an unnamed friend.

The poem mimics the way someone would remember an event by constantly skipping time between the notable times during the day, and the descriptions we are given show more of the overall mood of what happened rather than the specifics.

Although the poem never mentions what city they were in we know that New York has both subways and ferries, so the poem could be set there.

The speaker in the poem is a woman who obviously was very happy during the time of this memory. She also is very kind, because her friend and she gave an old lady all the money they had, and the apples and pears they had left.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think Barnes' home schooling had anything to do with her apparent dissent for the women that frequented the roof gardens? Why or why not?
2. In "Come into the roof garden, Maud," Barnes briefly talks about the 'French sisters.' She essentially says that they have little room in their mouths to speak intelligently, but plenty of room for lipstick. Do you think this viewpoint accompanied Barnes when she went to Paris?
3. While there is no evidence to suggest the women, (or the men for that matter,) have not had a good education like Barnes, do you feel that she thinks of herself as much more intelligent than her company?
4. In the first few sentences of the piece, Barnes describes the roof gardens so holistically, one would be tempted to want to visit one. Did you expect the piece to take such a turn when she began to talk about the people attending the event?
5. Do you feel there is a connection between Barnes and Edith Wharton when Barnes writes in such criticizing ways?
6. Why do you think Millay made the title in Spanish when there are no other instances of Spanish in the rest of the poem?
7. Why do you think Millay never actually names the city where the poem is set?
8. The speaker in 'Recuerdo' takes about a third of the poem on a hypothetical situation where she learns of the death of a friend. Do you think that the speakers' friend actually died? Why or why not?
9. Why do you think that the speaker says she could not cry aloud in the subway if she learned of her friends' death?
10. Why do you think Millay never actually names the speakers' friend throughout the poem?
11. What connection between Barnes' piece and Millay's piece can you find, if any?