Poetry, as a literary genre, is broadly defined as “The art or work of a poet” or “Imaginative or creative literature in general” ( Oxford English Dictionary ). With such a broad definition in context, poets are able to conceive of their own literature as poetry by studying poems and poets before them. Subsequently, poets are able to extend or manipulate the ideas, structure, and themes of the poems that preceded theirs. For example, Thomas Stearns Eliot was the precursor to Harold Hart Crane. Crane's work suggests that he studied Eliot's writing, such as the way Eliot created movement with words and montage of metronomes. Crane not only emulated particular elements of Eliot's work, but also transformed the desperate themes of Eliot's work into propositions of hope for the future through his epic poem “The Bridge.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Eliot's poetic work contains the movement of space and time, a predominant feature of which Crane also uses in his poetry. For example, the speaker of Eliot's epic poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” creates a back and forth movement with his diction of thoughts. The speaker of this poem leads the audience in advance to "a rousing question" (10), then remarks to the audience "Oh, ask not, 'What is it?' (11), shortly after. Next, Eliot's poem creates movement through the narrator's thoughts, which begins to lead to a question and then changes movement as the narrator's tone stops. Furthermore, Eliot further incorporates movement into his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” through the physical movement of people. In describing, for example, "the women [who] come and go talking about Michelangelo" (35-36), the speaker describes physical movement back and forth. In doing so, the audience can visualize a movement from east to west as the women talk about Michelangelo, a man to whom the speaker believes he cannot compare himself because of his "bald patch in the middle of [his] hair... [and] arms and legs that are thin” (40-44). Similarly, Crane describes physical movement in his poem “The Bridge.” From the proem, At the Brooklyn Bridge, the speaker establishes the setting through the image of a seagull, whose "wings will submerge him and spin him... building Liberty high above the chained waters of the bay - then, with inviolate curve, will abandon our eyes" "(2-5). The words “plunge,” “high,” and “bend,” all enclosed in two short stanzas at the beginning of the poem, allow the audience to imagine spatial movement just as movement does in Eliot's poems. Crane also takes the audience through a space journey to Atlantis, of which the speaker eloquently describes, the bridge moving in a vertical direction “Through the tied strands of cable, the arcing path upward (1-2 ), while the bridge connects east to west. While Crane emulates Eliot's writing style describing physical movement, he alters the tone of the movement over time. While Eliot's poem manipulates time with a melancholic tone, Crane manipulates the movement of time with a tone of hope. In Eliot's Death By Water poem “The Wasteland,” the speaker narrates that Phlebas rises and falls as he “overcomes the stages of his age and youth by entering a whirlpool” (317-18) while he is drowning. The speaker presents this morbid event and suggests to his audience, particularly those “looking to windward” (320), to “Consider Fleba, who was once as handsome and tall as you” (321). Therefore, the speaker urges audience members with a positive mind to look back on history toseeking harmful memories rather than hopeful insights. Crane transforms Eliot's disposition by shifting time into the past to inform the present in a more hopeful way. In Van Winkle's “The Bridge,” for example, the speaker recalls the cases of his mother and father, then tells Van Winkle to learn from the past, remarking “Did you get your Times?” (47). Advising Van Winkle to turn to the “Times” (47), a news source, the speaker suggests Van Winkle gather knowledge to inform his future, Crane suggests that there is still hope. After recalling the cases of his mother and father when he was young and urging Van Winkle to get the Times, the speaker of Crane's poem strongly urges, "hurry up, Van Winkle, it's getting done. late!" (48). While "it's getting late!" (48) may suggest limited time and urgency, it also recognizes that there is more time to persevere than to drown. Crane, like Eliot , manipulates time in his poetry. However, Crane extends his arrangement in a more positive way of literary editing of Crane's poetry further describes himself as a disciple of T. S. Eliot. As articulated in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Eliot's poetry is “made of fragments, they are pieces of a puzzle that could be joined if certain spiritual conditions were met” (461). In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” for example, the speaker describes fragments of a woman's body rather than describing the woman as a whole by admitting, “I've known arms before, I've known them all: arms which are bracelets and white and naked (But in the lamplight, sprinkled with light brown hair)” (62-64). Furthermore, in this poem by Eliot, the speaker fragments himself by comparing himself to "a pair of ragged claws running across the bottoms of silent seas" (73-74). Both the ways in which the speaker sexualizes the woman with her arms and the speaker portrays himself as no longer worthy of the claws of a small creature at the bottom of the sea fragment entire objects into smaller pieces. Similarly, Crane also uses fragments in his poetry. Crane uses variously shaped stanzas that take place in different geographic locations from the waters of Manhattan in The Harbor Dawn (618) "through Ohio and Indiana" in The River (621). Crane also provides montages through snippets of attributions to historical icons such as Pocahontas and Christopher Columbus. Crane also provides references to other poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, playing on Poe's famous quote "Nevermore!" of his poem "The Crow" stating: "O always!" (78), in VII. The “Il Ponte” Tunnel. Crane uses these fragments of geographical places and people to rely on a message that goes beyond its small parts. In Ava Maria, an early section of “The Bridge,” Crane includes a reference to Christopher Columbus, an icon who took a voyage for a larger purpose. This suggests that the poem, like Columbus, carries a message. Unlike the montages of whole pieces that Eliot writes about, Crane writes about montages that perhaps contain a message for the future. While the speaker in Eliot's poem describes a personal cry for help, the speaker in Crane's poem suggests a nationalistic cry for help and help. reform. In Eliot's poems, the speaker describes a world without hope. In the Fire Sermon in “The Wasteland,” for example, the speaker struggles to make connections with those around him. The speaker has difficulty communicating with his partner, who verbally pleads, “Stay with me. Talk to me. Why don't you ever talk? Speak. What are you thinking? What thought? What? I never know what you're thinking. Think." (111-114). The Fire Sermon's partner implores.