Output details

Proem

This short animated film explores uses of metaphor as a connotative experiential phenomenon, focusing on Harold Hart Crane’s letter to Harriet Monroe ‘Logic of Metaphor’ alongside drafts of his ‘Proem To Brooklyn Bridge’. The film develops an interdisciplinary contribution to cultural representations of literature and literary figures through animation and sound design. Using Crane’s writings to explore the potential transfer and effect of metaphorical construction processes on forms of animation, sound design and poetry, the film is innovative in re-presenting both Crane’s work and his writing methods.

The research builds on a 10,000 word article ‘Thinking Narratively, Metaphorically and Allegorically’ written by Dr Sally Bayley, Hanna and Tom Simmons ('Journal of American Studies', Cambridge University Press, November 2013). The article introduces and frames the research as a basis for both the film and a critical forum featuring respondents with expertise in Crane’s life and works. Focusing on contemporary literature, poetry, film and sound of the period, this will also be published in the 'Journal of American Studies' (February 2014). Alongside a description of the methodology employed in the research, historical focus is given to the conceptual limitations of language theory, and symbolic, analogical and metaphoric relationships. The research was disseminated at the ‘Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival’ (October 2013).

Hanna led an international workshop at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford in July 2013 exploring the visual representation of Hart Crane’s metaphors through object theatre tableaux. Hanna’s animation communicates tactile material relationships through original animated imagery, translating Hart Crane’s metaphors and oxymorons into a parallel filmic experience of the Proem. Influenced by Joseph Stella’s painting 'Brooklyn Bridge' (1920) and Vorticist graphics, the animation plays with space and form, using hand-cut layered registered stencils so the physical act of the process is evidenced in the film’s original optical dynamic.