The Bridge (short story)
"The Bridge" ("Die Brücke") is a short story by Franz Kafka. It was published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1946).
The story is told from the first person point of view. In the tale, the bridge discusses how, above the ravine, it grasps onto each end. When someone, or something, begins to suddenly place pressure on the structure, it collapses. The last sentence mentions it is breaking apart, falling upon the jagged rocks below.
Analysis
The Bridge is one of many very short pieces by Kafka (flash fiction) yet it is ripe with meaning. The bridge demonstrates human characteristics so at least one interpretation is that the events described are taking place within the mind of a distressed person.
References
Bridge (music)
In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section that prepares for the return of the original material section. The bridge may be the third eight-bar phrase in a thirty-two-bar form (the B in AABA), or may be used more loosely in verse-chorus form, or, in a compound AABA form, used as a contrast to a full AABA section.
The term comes from a German word for bridge, Steg, used by the Meistersingers of the 15th to 18th century to describe a transitional section in medieval bar form. The German term became widely known in 1920s Germany through musicologist Alfred Lorenz and his exhaustive studies of Richard Wagner's adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th century neo-medieval operas. The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930s—translated as bridge—via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, used the term to describe similar transitional sections in the American popular music they were writing.
Role
The Bridge
The Bridge may refer to:
Art, entertainment and media
Art
Film
The Bridge (Letter Kills album)
The Bridge is the debut and only studio album by American punk-emo band Letter Kills. Produced by Jim Wirt, the album was released on July 2, 2004 through Island Records.
Track listing
Personnel
Charts
Notes
The track "Radio Up" was featured on the game Burnout 3: Takedown and in NHL 2005.
References
Podcasts:
