STEPHEN CRANE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23223, 22 June 1937, Page 11

STEPHEN CRANE

ADDRESS TO W.E.A. The W.E.A. literature class was addressed last evening on “ Stephen Crane” by Mr J. Harris, the University librarian. Crane, Mr Harris said, was perhaps the least known of the writers included in this year’s course of lectures. It seemed to be only during the last few years that he had been “rediscovered” in America by the critics. The reason why he was more important to us to-day than to the people of his own time could be found in the fact that he was in advance of his time. Hence his Influence had been exerted upon writers more than upon readers. . ~ it . The fourteenth child of a Methodist parson. Crane had been born in New Jersey in 1871. He had attended Lafayette and Syracuse Universities, where he had done very little more than play baseball. He had been interested in literature also, but in veiy little else. Upon leaving university he had taken up newspaper work, and almost straightaway had begun to supply a number of papers with sketches, articles, and short stories. In 1891, at the age of 20, his first long book, “Maggie." had been written and published anonymously at the author s own expense. The book described luG of the lowest type In the worst parts of American cities. Maggie herself, the main character of the book, was a girl of the streets. Crane had been so impressed by the terror and miseiy of such sides of life that he had felt himself driven to write about it. The year 1895 had seen the publication ot The Red Badge of Courage, which had made its writer famous straightaway. A story of the American Civil War, this book had been acclaimed as an accurate and realistic description of warfare, although Crane had never seen warfare at the time at which he had written it. He had immediately been requested by several papers to become their war correspondent. Subsequently as war correspondent he had been to Cuba, Greece and Turkey, and had been at the scone of the Span-ish-American War. During his expedition to Cuba he had been shipwrecked and had had a very arduous time in an open boat getting to land again. That experience had entailed considerable suffering and had causec the disease which was to carry him off at the age of 29. “ The Open Boat a short story to which the wreck had given rise, had been described by «• G. Wells as the best short story in the English language. In 1898. like many American writers of that time, Crane had retired to England. Two years later, when he was selling out as war correspondent for the Morning Post, he had become seriously ill with consumption, which soon proved fatal. Crane's work, apart from the two books previously mentioned, had comprised several books of short stories, mostly concerned with war and adventure. [ Most of the poetry that had come from this man’s pen had been. Mr Harris said, principally free verse of a rather ironical flavour. This verse had boon extraordinarily modern both in form and in content. Until Crane s work, war had been represented in art from onlv two points of view—those of the generals and commanders and masses of soldiers. Crane had given an entirely new “slant” on war bv treating it from the point of view of the individual and usually from that of an individual new to war. War had been treated that way since, especially the last war. taut the speaker did not think it had been done before in English. , , After reading two selected and characteristic passages from “ The Rod Badge of Courage.” Mr Hams gave a general outline of that book, commenting on the si vie and characters. Crane, he said, had that genius which selected (hose details which gave insight. Comparisons of Crane with Bret Harte and with modern writers of war books (Geoffrey Cox), together with a detailed and interesting outline of the period in which he had lived, brought an interesting lecture to a close.