Hart Crane's debt to P. D. Ouspensky

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the existence of a significant influence upon Hart Crane by the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky, and to define more specifically than has yet been done the exact nature of Crane's debt. Although the criticism generally acknowledges that a debt is present, no study yet exists which identifies and discusses the influence at length. This paper attempts to fill that void.

The study first examines the life and thought of Ouspensky, a turn-of-the-century mystic philosopher whose book Tertium Organum became popular in America in the early 1920's. A brief discussion of the major points of that book is given. The paper then attempts to determine why Hart Crane was so drawn to Ouspensky by investigating Crane's character and examining the major themes of his early poetry in order to establish the parallels between the two men's ideas and to reveal how Ouspensky's work shaped Crane's thought. Finally, the study makes an examination of how Ouspensky's theories of consciousness, space, and time are used by Crane in his poem The Bridge. It is argued that Crane adopted Ouspensky's idea of the expansion of man's space-sense and the reduction of the time-sense and used it as a structural principle in his poem.