Supernova

  When it came night,
  the white waves
  paced to and fro in
  the moonlight, and
  the wind brought
  the sound of the great
  sea's voice to the men
  on shore, and they 
  felt that they could
  then be interpreters.

Readers who remember the first sentences of

The Red Badge of Courage will need no prompt-

ing to recall the last of The Open Boat, as

the uncanny Stephen Crane resorted again to

the terrestrial telegraph. Called a supernova

by the editor of my walking-around collection

of his prose and poetry, no one seems to re-

sist the appellation in his case, as Heming-

way explained what happened to him: "He died

.. He was dying from the start."

All agree - Hemingway, the most - that this

extraordinarily projected life simply has not

met that end, and that, phosphorescently, the

touch of Stephen Crane imparts its flame be-

yond all imitation. Yet although his stamp 

upon American literature is staggering, and 

upon so many stylists, seductive, this is

his only real resemblance to Rimbaud.  

Now again we have an important study of Crane,

to add to John Berryman's and Christopher Ben-

fey's, and the constant lode in the learned

periodicals. I'm looking forward to reading

Paul Sorrentino's biography, which was warmly

received in [the] TLS. But that fine scholar-

ship must be content to compete with Crane's

astoundingly compelling writing, which draws

the mind beyond corroboration, again except

terrestrially -

    I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

    Round and round they sped.

    ..

    

Stephen Crane

1871 - 1900

The Open Boat

1899

Black Riders

  and Other Lines

1895

Gary Scharnhorst, editor

The Red Badge of Courage

  and Other Stories

op. cit.