Crane's Black Riders: IT IS BITTER, BITTER

"Nobody is more modern than Mr. Stephen Crane, the young American writer who has lately made a considerable reputation by his military and other novels," wrote the unnamed reviewer in the London Times for 4 February 1897. Crane's 1895 novel The Red Badge of Courage was a huge success and was critically applauded (for the most part). Published at about the same time, however, Black Riders and Other Lines was nothing like his novel. For one thing, it was a collection of poems — and avant garde poems, at that. The book was printed in all capital letters, the poems did not rhyme or carry titles, and broke all standard rules of poetic form, some as short as four lines.

Crane must have been relieved by the review in the Times, which called the book "an experiment suggesting Walt Whitman on the one hand and Friedrich Nietzsche on the other." Other critics had simply dismissed the book as "trash" or, in a different comparison to Whitman, one wrote, "there is not a line of poetry from the opening to the closing page. Whitman's Leaves of Grass were luminous in comparison. Poetic lunacy would be a better name for the book." Crane wriggled a little from the sting but was also pleased by the stir the book caused.

The Times reviewer, however, seemed just as ahead of his time as Crane's poems. "Mr. Crane probably has a literary future," he wrote. "His novels have shown that he can observe and record with merciless, if one-sided, realism; his little 'Lines' show that he has ideas." Among those ideas is a frequent question of religion or at least the motivation of gods, a bitter outlook on humanity, strange irony, and a sort of uncomfortable ambiguity of meaning. His imagery often features deserts, monsters, and sage but aloof genius characters. Taking the book as a whole, a reader might feel on the cusp of understanding but Crane makes it difficult and, perhaps, too deeply personal. Consider, for example, number "III":

IN THE DESERT
I SAW A CREATURE, NAKED, BESTIAL,
WHO, SQUATTING UPON THE GROUND,
HELD HIS HEART IN HIS HANDS,
AND ATE OF IT.
I SAID, IS IT GOOD, FRIEND?"
"IT IS BITTER, BITTER," HE ANSWERED;
"BUT I LIKE IT
BECAUSE IT IS BITTER,
AND BECAUSE IT IS MY HEART."

And "XLVI":

MANY RED DEVILS RAN FROM MY HEART
AND OUT UPON THE PAGE,
THEY WERE SO TINY
THE PEN COULD MASH THEM.
AND MANY STRUGGLED IN THE INK.
IT WAS STRANGE
TO WRITE IN THIS RED MUCK
OF THINGS FROM MY HEART.

Birth of Stephen Crane: Here I stay and wait

Born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 1, 1871, Stephen Crane went on to live a life where he seldom kept in one place for long. His parents were active in the church community and local religious-inspired causes; his father was a Methodist minister (the family moved a few times as he took jobs at different churches) and his mother worked with a local Christian Temperance Union. The Cranes had 14 children; Stephen was the last.

Young Stephen Crane was a sickly child and his parents questioned his weakness. He became interested in poetry early and wrote one asking for a dog when he was 8 years old. It was at that age that he began his schooling with the death of his father. He was left in the care of various relatives amid various deaths of family members and his mother possibly suffering from mental illness. He enrolled at boarding schools and, as a teenager, started writing for a news bureau with his brother.

Crane considered a military career but was persuaded to try college instead. He briefly attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania then Syracuse University in New York but declared college "a waste of time." Instead, he turned to writing (and wandering). He met Hamlin Garland, who was traveling for a lecture, and the two discussed William Dean Howells and literary realism. Garland's was named on the dedication page on Crane's first book of poetry. By the end of his life when he died in Germany at age 28, Crane would have traveled the globe, become embroiled with various scandals and controversies, and struggled to move past his early fame from his book The Red Badge of Courage.

Poem titled "XXIII" from The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), which was originally published solely with capital letters:

Places among the stars,
Soft gardens near the sun,
Keep your distant beauty;
Shed no beams upon my weak heart.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Not your golden days
Nor your silver nights
Can call me to you.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Here I stay and wait

Crane: little claim to commendation

"The book is a collection of impressions, with little of rhyme or rhythm," according to the reviewer in the May 27, 1899 issue of the New York Times. The book under scrutiny was Stephen Crane's War is Kind — though the reviewer was not kind: "Judged by almost any poetic standard... the verses of Mr. Crane have little claim to commendation."

Calling him "unconventional" in both thought and expression, the reviewer compared him to Walt Whitman but, ultimately, not comparable to the "dignity of the best work of the modern masters." The reviewer did admit, however, that Crane possessed "verbal magic" for his ability to paint with words, much like what he exhibited in his prose work The Red Badge of Courage. More distinctively, "he condenses sentences, pages even, into a single word." Even so, the reviewer ultimately determines the book is "closely akin to a genuine disappointment."

Even so, the review singles out some of Crane's poems as being good, including the title poem and the following untitled one:

"I have heard the sunset song of the birches,
A white melody in the silence,
I have seen a quarrel of the pines.
At nightfall
The little grasses have rushed by me
With the wind men.
These things have I lived," quoth the maniac,
"Possessing only eyes and ears.
But you —
You don green spectacles before you look at roses."
When I am fast asleep,
Then tell my love the secret
That I have died to keep.

*Gratitude is due to Richard M. Weatherford for including this review in his book Stephen Crane (1973), a substantial collection of contemporary reviews of Crane's writings.

Crane's Monster: an outrage on art and humanity

Julian Hawthorne concluded the story was "an outrage on art and humanity" in his review published in the Philadelphia North American on December 29, 1899. The work in question was The Monster (either a lengthy short story or a short novella) by Stephen Crane, published earlier that year.

Crane's story follows a black coachman named Henry Johnson and his employers, the Trescott family. When the Trescott home catches fire, Johnson puts himself in danger and saves the boy, Jimmie. In doing so, however, Johnson is horrifically disfigured (all we are told is that he has "no face"; Crane is deliciously coy on details). The story then shifts to Dr. Trescott, the family patriarch, in dealing with the "monster" who saved the life of his son but now causes revulsion and horror among the townspeople. The story is told largely through the eyes of the judgmental, rumor-mongering townspeople. Ultimately, the story is one of oppression and of societal shunning — but not the shunning of Johnson. In fact, the monster himself becomes less and less a part of the story, with only one scene of actual dialogue after the fire.

Julian Hawthorne, the son of the famous novelist, immediately drew comparison with another book published some 80 years earlier: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. "What is a man to do with a monster which exists owing to his own efforts?" Hawthorne asks in his review. Like Shelley's book, the book is really asking the ethical questions surrounding not the monster, but the man behind the monster. And Crane, in a style reminiscent of his poetry, leaves massive gaps for the reader to fill in — particularly in its final scene. This style was not appreciated by Hawthorne: "And if you believe it, Crane leaves the matter... without the faintest pretense of doing anything whatever to relieve it!"

The real question in the story is this one, asked not coincidentally by the judge of the town:

...the judge said, suddenly, "Trescott, do you think it is —" As Trescott paused expectantly, the judge fingered his knife. He said, thoughtfully, "No one wants to advance such ideas, but somehow I think that that poor fellow ought to die."

There was in Trescott's face at once a look of recognition, as if in this tangent of the judge he saw an old problem. He merely sighed and answered, "Who knows?" The words were spoken in a deep tone that gave them an elusive kind of significance.

But it is not the death of the monster Henry Johnson that concerned Crane (who, incidentally, died about seven months later). These are the enigmatic last lines of the story that so angered Hawthorne — and the passage should convince you to go back and read the whole thing:

The wind was whining round the house, and the snow beat aslant upon the windows. Sometimes the coal in the stove settled with a crumbling sound, and the four panes of mica flashed a sudden new crimson. As he sat holding her head on his shoulder, Trescott found himself occasionally trying to count the cups. There were fifteen of them.

Guest post: Crane and his vicious satire

It is difficult to think of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage as anything less than one of the great American works of the late 19th century. When it was published by D. Appleton and Co. in late 1895, it initially earned what H. G. Wells called "an orgy of praise." Reviewers commended Crane's unique story about a young private in the Union Army who battles shame and fear while yearning for military glory. Some even praised the novel's realism, although Crane was only 24 at the time of publication and had yet to witness battle. He later jokingly stated he had found inspiration from the "rage of conflict on the football field."

Not everyone found the novel to their liking, however. On April 16, 1896, The Dial published a passionate letter from its proprietor, General Alexander C. McClurg, a Civil War veteran as well as publisher and book collector. In his lengthy missive, McClurg attacked both The Red Badge of Courage and those who continued to sing its praises. Mistakenly believing that the novel was first published in England, only to be viciously let loose stateside, he wrote of it being "only too well known that English writers have had a very low opinion of American soldiers."

McClurg did not mince words. He deemed the book itself "a vicious satire upon American soldiers and American armies." The character of Henry Fleming was nothing more than "an ignorant and stupid country lad" without "a spark of patriotic feeling." Crane's writing was riddled with "absurd similes" and "bad grammar." Most damning of all was the fact that "nowhere are seen the quiet, manly, self-respecting, and patriotic men, influenced by the highest sense of duty, who in reality fought our battles." McClurg summed up by stating the book ought not have been published in the country at all, "out of respect" for the American public.

The letter unleashed a torrent of responses. While several agreed with his sentiments regarding the novel's literary merits (or lack thereof), most did not. Many thought McClurg's attacks against The Red Badge of Courage and its young author unfair. As British author and critic Sydney Brooks wrote, the General "came out on the warpath, arrested Mr. Crane as a literary spy, court-martialled him, and shot the poor fellow off-hand."


*Maria Atilano is a Sr. Library Services Associate at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She is a frequent contributor to Wikipedia, having written the articles for Crane, "The Open Boat," and The Red Badge of Courage, amongst others.

Crane's Red Badge of Courage

On September 27, 1895, Stephen Crane took out a copyright on a novel, his first published book-length work since Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The novel, based on a serialized series from the year before, was titled The Red Badge of Courage and carried a cover price of $1 when it was published.

Crane had read stories devoted to battles and people from the Civil War (which Crane himself never witnessed, having been born in 1871). He thought the stories reflected a dry, glorification of heroic deeds — but true emotions weren't expressed. "I wonder that some of those fellows don't tell how they felt in those scraps," Crane noted. "They spout enough of what they did, but they're as emotionless as rocks."

Inspired in part by Ambrose Bierce's own Civil War writings (Bierce noted we must "cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And... endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be"), The Red Badge of Courage was his attempt at showing the more human side of battle.

The novel follows a private in a fictional regiment taking part in an unnamed battle. True to his word, Crane focused on the emotions a soldier experiences. His main character, fearing failure, deserts mid-battle (though he later returns). Fear and anxiety are important and very real emotions in the book. For example:

In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been dark and unfaltering in the grimmest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed. Or, perhaps, they thoughts it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety. With backwards looks of perturbation, they hastened.

Death of Stephen Crane and O. Henry

Stephen Crane ended the 19th century with a severe hemorrhage of the lungs, shortly after hosting a several day-long Christmas banquet. He recovered somewhat but, amidst writing a novel called The O'Ruddy, he suffered two more massive hemorrhages in the spring of 1900. He went to a health spa in Germany, still dictating a few chapters for his novel. He died on June 5, 1900. He was 28 years old.

The O'Ruddy was published posthumously in 1903. Despite his youth, before his death Crane had already published Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, The Red Badge of Courage, and The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure (among other works). Even so, he was not quite as prolific as O. Henry, who died the same day, ten years later, on June 5, 1910. Henry was 47.

Henry, whose real name was William Sidney Porter, wrote mostly short stories, often upbeat, usually with a surprise ending. One of his most famous is "The Gift of the Magi." The story follows a poor couple searching for the perfect gift for their spouse. The wife buys a fob for her husband's prized watch, selling her beautiful hair for money to make the purchase. Unbeknown to her, the husband has sold his watch to buy an extravagant set of combs for his wife's long hair. Henry compares this couple to the Biblical magi:

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

The subtle brotherhood on the seas

The April 30, 1898 issue of The Publisher's Weekly announced the publication of The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure. Its author, Stephen Crane, was 27 years old at the time. His novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, had been published only five years earlier; The Red Badge of Courage came two years after that.

The title story, "The Open Boat," is based on Crane's real-life experience while serving as a journalist corresponding from the Cuban War of Independence. The steamship on which he was traveling, the SS Commodore, hit a sandbar and sank. Crane was one of the last to escape, using a dinghy which overturned as he and others attempted to reach shore. The young journalist's report of the disaster made the front page of the newspaper three days after rescue.

Though "The Open Boat" was inspired by the true event, the story is fictional. It follows four characters as they try to find their way back to land after their disaster at sea. Only one character is named, the oiler Billie. Billie is the strongest of the group and the one Crane wrote most sympathetically. He is also the only of the main characters who does not survive. He was based on a real person who also did not survive the real incident. That real person, William Higgins, was the subject of Crane's dedication, along with the other men involved.

Crane is known for his pioneering psychological realism, often while rejecting sentimentality. His work is often compared to impressionistic art, resulting in a sort of ambiguity. I see more of a jumpy, quirky, real-life snapshot with realistic stream-of-consciousness. From part III:

It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common. The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey. It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.