Audiobook · read by volunteers
War Is Kind (Collection)
Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
Read by Chip · 1 chapter · 29 min
About the book
Stephen Crane is remembered for the battlefield, yet in War Is Kind he leaves the fighting behind to look at what war does to the people who wait, mourn and remember. These are short, spare poems, bitter and tender at once, written by a young man who seems already tired of illusions. Heroes are doubted, glory is questioned, and the cheerful drums of departure give way to a quieter, harsher sound. Crane writes in free, irregular lines that were unusual in his day, and the effect can be startling: a few lines, a single image, and the comfortable story you were expecting has gone. The collection is brief, around half an hour, read by one volunteer in a single sitting. It is a good introduction to Crane as a poet, and an unsettling reminder that irony can be a form of compassion, especially when the subject is the cost of war.
Introduction
Stephen Crane, born in 1871 and dead at only twenty-eight in 1900, packed an astonishing amount into a very short career. Most readers know him for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which made his reputation in the 1890s. War Is Kind appeared in 1899, a year before his death, and it shows another side of his talent: that of a poet with a taste for compression and irony.
The collection moves away from the fields of combat itself and turns toward the emotional damage that war leaves behind. Its voice is that of someone old and worn before his time, doubtful of the romantic hero and sceptical about the reasons given for fighting. At the same time, there is real sympathy for those who suffer. Crane’s lines are often short, irregular and abrupt, and they were unlike most American verse of the period.
This LibriVox recording gathers the collection in one continuous track of about half an hour. It is read by a single volunteer, Chip. It is easy to listen to in one sitting, and then easy to listen to again, because the poems are so condensed that each hearing reveals a different shade. For anyone curious about early modern American poetry, it is a compact and memorable place to begin. The poems are short enough that each can be savoured separately, and their stark language makes them an excellent first step for listeners who think that nineteenth century verse must sound old-fashioned.
Public domain
Stephen Crane died in 1900: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text