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"The Bridge"

 Hart Crane

(1899-1932)

Begun in 1923, published in 1930. The Brooklyn Bridge, connecting the island of Manhattan with the borough of Brooklyn, was the first steel-wire suspension bridge in the world, built between 1869 and 1883, over the East River. Designed by J.A. and W. A. Roebling, it was the world's longest suspension bridge at the time of its completion.

Joseph Stella

(1877-1946)

The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939

For Stella, an Italian immigrant, the Brooklyn Bridge was a "shrine containing all the efforts of the new civilization, America--the eloquent meeting place of all the forces arising in a superb assertion of their powers; an apotheosis."

George Gershwin

(1898-1937)

Hart Crane, in a letter to his patron Otto H. Kahn, September 12, 1927, says of "The River": "The extravagance of the first twenty-three lines of this section is an intentional burlesque on the cultural confusion of the present--a great conglomeration of noises analogous to the strident impression of a fast express rushing by. The rhythm is jazz."

Last Revised on Tuesday, October 26, 1999