A survey of the criticism of Stephen Crane's poetry

Sharon J Mitchler, Fayetteville State University

Abstract

Although Stephen Crane's fiction is widely read and criticized, there has been significantly less written about his poetry. Since the poems' first publication, critics have struggled with their placement in the literary canon. His critics' discussions have moved from derision, to confusion, and eventually, when opinions finally stabilized more than sixty years after Crane's death, to respect for the poems. Stephen Crane's approximately 135 poems are amazingly similar to each other. There have been a number of explanations. The fact that Crane wrote his poems in a relatively brief period is one. Two other suggestions are that he died before he had a chance to mature as a poet, and that he wrote his poetry outside the influence of other major poets of his time. Although the critics have not reached a conclusive answer to this question, they continue to write about his poems, through scholarly writing and the Internet.

Subject Area

American literature

Recommended Citation

Mitchler, Sharon J, "A survey of the criticism of Stephen Crane's poetry" (1997). ETD Collection for Fayetteville State University. AAI1391114.
https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/dissertations/AAI1391114

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