Hart Crane and the Modernist Epic

This study examines Hart Crane's canonical ambitions in The Bridge and argues for a new species of epic, 'the modernist epic,' which also includes Pound's The Cantos, Eliot's The Waste Land, and Williams's Paterson. It offers a close reading of The Bridge as a hybrid of lyric and epic modes. Crane's sublime and history converge in a complex synthesis of form and ideas. The study reconceives Crane's achievement by locating him in an intertextual system of production while also recognizing his poe