Transmutation in Crane's Imagery in The Bridge Author(s): Bernice Slote Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 73, No.

1 (Jan., 1958), pp. 15-23 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043279 Accessed: 09/09/2010 02:04
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in in Transinutation Crane'sImagery The Bridge

of One poetic techniquein Hart Crane's work is the recurrence imagery slightly in changedpatterns, the repetition patternsin or of somewhatdifferent imagery. This device, which as a verbal convenience I shall call transmutation, occurs often enough in The Bridge1 to be considereda part of the poem's unity,and in one instance,at least, an emphasison its theme. I referto the muchmaligned " Three Songs," which few readerscan fit into the logic of thewhole,butwhichas a section a rather is remarkable anticipation of the patternof the last three: " Quaker Hill," " The Tunnel," and " Atlantis." This relationship be considered can aftera look at some individualexamplesof transmutation Crane'spoem. in The recurrence image and situationin The Bridge was partly of deliberate, partly unconscious withCrane,as he wrote Waldo Frank: to
Are you noticing how throughout the poem motives and situations recurunder modificationsof environment, etc.? The organic substances of the poem are holding a great many surprises for me.2

When one image or situation reappears,thus modified, the transmutation gains something the tensionof life-the new moment of out of the past one. Movingthrough bridgeof present the consciousness, thetransmuted and and imagehas bothcontinuity change, familiarity surprise,thus achievinga paradoxical kineticpoise. But this very in qualityis in the Bridge itself,described the " Proem" as " silverleaves still " Some paced" by the sun whose unmovingmovement motion ever unspent in thy stride,-" When the same fusion, suggestive timeand stillness of beyond time,occursin the progress of the imagery, thematicBridge is organically the constructed. Cranenotedone ofthecentral transmutations thepoem-that the of Bridge becomes ship, world, woman, and harp.3 These are not arbitrary shiftsof the image-symbol, however, in the " Proem" for the Bridgeis seen as " Vaulting the sea, the prairies'dreaming sod," its extensionthroughwater and land preparingfor the joining of and histories the searchby sea, and thegenerative forceof Pocahontas as thenaturalworldof America. Its function harpforthe harmony as
1 The Collected Poems of Hart Crane, ed. with an Introd. by Waldo Frank (New York, 1946). 2 Letter to Waldo Frank (23 Aug. 1926), in The Letters of Hart Crane, ed. Brom Weber (New York, 1952), p. 275. All referencesto Crane's letters are to pages in this edition. 3 Letter to Waldo Frank (18 Jan. 1926), p. 232.

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of themystic in visionis defined thevisual cabledshape-the " choiring " strings and the " Unfractioned idiom"-as well as the union which the sweepinglines of the Bridge invoke. Other evidencesof transmutation in the details of the poem. are For example,the frostand fog surrounding lovers in " Harbor the Dawn " becomes snowof " Van Winkle,"as actionturnsfromthe the harbored roomto the space movement acrossAmerica. As the frost is transmuted the snowscreen, to it the through flickers
Sabbatical, unconscious smile My mother almost brought me once from church.

This nearlyvisionary, smile,like Cathayor Atlantis, lost becomesthe evanescent truthsearchedfor in farther distancesthrough the poem and reappearsin undercurrents the River, glimpsesof Atlantis of a through screenof dust and steel,and the last antiphonalwhispers of Cathay. The childhoodgarter snakes and the launched paper monoplanesin "Van Winkle" become the time-serpent and spaceeagle of later sections, well as the aircraft " Cape Hatteras." As as of the snakes (symbolof timein the poem) are struck fromthe ash heap by the boy in " Van Winkle,"theyflashtongues" as clean as fire." These blend into the fireof "red fangs/ And splay tongues" that burntheIndian Maquokeeta " The Dance." He is specifically in called "snake," and from" pure serpent, Time itself,"changesin apotheosis to timelessfreedom, like a meteoror star. The lovers of "Harbor Dawn" reappear as Pocahontas and Maquokeeta in "The Dance." As Pocahontas" is the torrent the singingtree,"so it was said of and the awakening women: " a forest shuddersin yourhair." The timenaturemarriage(Maquokeetaand Pocahontas) in " The Dance " and man's union with nature on what Crane called " the pure mythical and smokysoil "4 of Indian culturehas a wholeness, acceptance an of both physicaland spiritual,whose primitive life-force a transis mutation the moresubmerged of nature-spirit "The River." There of bothgods and Pocahontas (the body-life the land) are held down of by an iron age, underthe streamof train passengers that blend into the flowof pioneersand all in the flowof the great riverwhich is time. Yet the river holds a deeper force,a "jungle grace" (" 0 quarrying sunlight that will reach its mystic ") passion,undertowed end in the silent depthsof the sea. As the Indian destinyends in isolationand near extinction the stonesof mesa sands (recalling on
':Letter to Otto H. Kahn (12 Sept. 1927), p. 307.

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Modern Language Notes

the backyardcinderpile in " Van Winkle "), the next blend is into the stonynuggetsof gold which man searchesfor ratherthan the fulfillment the natural world of Pocahontas. As nature symbol, of Pocahontas unitedwiththemother " Indiana," and the sea-going is of Larry with the derelictsailor of "Cutty Sark" ("I can't live on land"). In the bar, the mechanicaljingle of " Stamboul Nights," withits line of " 0 StamboulRose," fusesin the drinker's mindwith "coral Queen," and finallyin the coral depths of the sea, with "Atlantis Rose," a themewhichis the " transmuted voice,"as Crane himself said, "of the nickel-slot pianola." 5 The songis carriedto the close of the poem into the symphonic music of the mystical harp-like Bridgeand the flowering centerof eternity. The instanceof transmutation mostimportant the total unityof to The Bridge,however, that of " Three Songs" and the last sections is ofthepoem. Mr. JohnR. Willingham's articlein American Literature, " ' Three Songs' of Hart Crane's The Bridge,"6 does present a summary the unityof the songs. He sees these shortpoemsas a of development the female principlein several kinds of love, and of althoughdifferent a few details,my interpretation the songs in of themselves essentially is the same. It is my purposeto extendthis of demonstration theirunityby showingtheirtransmutation the in last sectionsof the poem: the failureand death of Eve in " Southern Cross" is transmuted the societyof "Quaker Hill "; the hell of to human experience the Magdalene of "National WinterGarden" in becomes thatof " The Tunnel"; and theriseto thespiritualized Mary of " Virginia" becomesthe mystical visionof " Atlantis." The three songsand the threesections movein the same line fromsterility and death throughcrude humanityand black night to the genesis of harmonyand vision. "Three Songs" is the prelude of a single instrument the full orchestration the last poems. And Crane's to of comment that " Quaker Hill," the last sectionto be added to The in Bridge,was not important itselfbut as an " accent,"7 indicates that he realizedthe possibility intensifying themeby completing of the the roundedpattern. The " Three Songs" are about threewomen-Eve, Magdalene,and Mary-but all fuseinto " woman,"or the femaleprinciple whosebody repeatsthe Pocahontassymbolism earlier of sections.The introductory
5Ibid. o American Literature, xXVIl (March 195,5), 62-68. 7Letter to Caresse Crosby (26 Dec. 1929), p. 347.

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quotationsimplynames the two cities,Sestos and Abydos,in which lived the loversHero and Leander, dividedby the Hellespont. The problemis to join them. The firstsong, " SouthernCross," is the yearning the woman (Eve, Magdalene,or Mary?), and the defeat for of yearning. The firsthope is for a cool, unphysicalideal, as the Southern Cross takes night separate from the violent "vaporous scars,"the " slowlysmoldering fire,"of the lowerheavens. But that is yearning defeated the presence Eve, fallenfromEden and the in of of symbol plain mortality, deaththat is the unrelieved burdenof the flesh.As mortality, becomesMedusa,turningseed and spawnto Eve stonydeath (" lithictrillions "); and the SouthernCross,a phantom height,drops below the dawn. There is nothingphysical in this woman-figure. is homeless, She grieving, serpent-ridden-aphantom like the Crossand a denial of life. To comparewith the sterility and death of " SouthernCross,"the transmuted form beginswiththe disillusioned, suburban QuakerHill, a societyconceivedin idealistichope but sunk to mediocrity.The introductory quotations, Isadora Duncan's " no ideals have everbeen " fullysuccessful and Emily Dickinson'slines on autumn,are motifs for the falling-off perfection of and life. As the wash of water in " SouthernCross" gave onlythe wraithof Eve, out of all the dreams of the PromisedLand, here in Quaker Hill are onlyemptywindows (of both hotel and people), "cancelled reservations," resignation to cheapness and vulgarity.The humandesolation forthepoet-speaker is " the curse of sunderedparentage (the separationof White and " Indian cultures and theattendant of primitive loss serenity that Crane developedin " The Dance "), a falling-off perfection, of like the gardenless, " death-giving Eve. The newsof " birthright blackmail by impliesthat the darknessand tragedyof mortalexistence, comthe mitment the flesh,must be fulfilled. Here " Quaker Hill " goes to farther than " SouthernCross" and suggests transition the next a to stage. To gain any new destiny, must drop fromthe high hawk's we view (the ideal) to see and lovetheearthmorehumbly witha " worm's eye" (the actual destiny). Close to theearth, theflesh, mortality, to to acceptingmortaldefeatand singingeven with the mortal" sheafof dust" upon the tongue,we take it to the Gate of entry otherrealto izations,which in the epigraphto " The Tunnel" becomesBlake's " Gates of Wrath." In the paradoxof life whichrejoicesevenin loss, despair, and death, a song "transmutingsilence" with a note of pain, the heart is brokenand saved at the same time,love shielded
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fromdespairby patienceevenwhilethe end is foreseen.The falling away of ideals and perfection imaged again in the autumnleaves is that "break off,/ descend-/ descend- " Both " Southern Cross" and " QuakerHill " close witha realization emptiness. of " National WinterGarden" and " The Tunnel" show human life at its crudest, most starkly its physicaland degraded. As Crane said 8 of " The Tunnel," " It's ratherghastly,almost surgery." But the sterilesheafof dustwhichsymbolized deathof theprevious section the mustbe changedto life whichis realizedonlythrough submission to physicalreality, eventhe forceof generation as man's sexual through nature is begun in Magdalene, the woman of "National Winter Garden." She is crudely, and all lust. The tom-toms violently physical and turquoise of snakeringsrecallPocahontas, thisis a caricature but the nature goddess,and all but the fleshescapes her. In the empty trapezeof her fleshalone theremay be no possibility soaringlife. of But even in this womanthereis something the whole,and in the of veryfactof the creative forceimplicitin herbeing,she impelstoward life. Even in her burlesqueof nature,thereis an involvement the in totalityof life. Throughthe recognition the whole can come reof creation, "bone by infantbone," through human commitment the to the flesh.As Cranewroteabout " Faustus and Helen " (a poemanticipatingmany of the themesof The Bridge), "the creatorand the eternal destroyer dance arm in arm."9 Here is isolated the lowest common of denominator life. The mortality deaththat Eve brought or into the world is a mark of the human dilemma,but it is to be conqueredby the life that is impelled by the continual forces of generation. In this light,the titleof the song has dual connotations: the death of winter,but winteras a garden wherelife is enclosed thoughnot yet flowering. In themechanical, materialworldof " The Tunnel,"theprotagonist again goes throughhell in order to reach paradise. The theme is statedin the quotation fromBlake:
To Find the Western path Right thro' the Gates of Wrath.

From Times Square and ColumbusCircle,movement the " hiving of " swarms goes by nightto the subwaywhere, underground,
8

Letter to Waldo Frank (23 Aug. 1926), p. 274. 3.Letter to Waldo Frank (7 Feb. 1923), p. 121.

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The phonographs of hades in the brain Are tunnels that re-wind themselves,

with nightmare grind of scenes chaotic,and humanity bleared with death. But even as the elementalcreativeforcein Magdalene could " Lug us back lifeward-boneby infantbone,"the protagonist the of Tunnel'sgraverisesto theharborand theBridgeout of the subway
like Lazarus, to feel the slope, The sod and billow breaking,-lifting ground.

Here, too, the lines anticipatethe following movement.The leap of faithand imagination preparedforin is
-A sound of waters bending astride the sky Unceasing with some Word that will not die . . .

The last poems to be relatedare " Virginia" and " Atlantis." In both, the imaginationrises throughlove to a mysticaltheme. In "Virginia "-girl, Pocahontas,the Virgin Mary-the action moves upward,even as Crane called the poem,"virgin in processof 'being built.' 10 From the crude dance-hall girl in "National Winter Garden,"the action has turnedto Mary,the girl that someonewaits forafterworkon a rainySaturdaynoon. Wish,separation, and doubt also correspond the motifof yearning " SouthernCross." But to in herethe girl is glorified withrealityin the secondstanza," blue-eved Marywiththeclaretscarf,"and higher imagesofbellsand pigeonslift the eyes. Gayetyand assurancesparklein this stanza, and doubtless the figsand oysters have garden and sexual references. Finally, out of realityand overthe springflowers the streetscene,she is shown in leaning out of the tower,like a medieval painting or an image of thegolden-haired BlessedDamozel at thegold bar ofheaven.Described through love and beauty, is givena clear spirituality:" Cathedral she Mary,/ shine!" In " ThreeSongs,"womanrisesfrom Eve in the dark waters,to Magdalenein the dance hall, to Mary shininghigh in the flowers. But Maryis real, not a wraithlike the figure Eve. of " In " Atlantis the finalmystic visionof The Bridgeis invoked, the lightand harmony morebrilliantly embodied because of the Tunnel's demonic night(as thesunat the closeof " Virginia" is brighter because of the smokydance and the morningrain). In the firstsix stanzas of " Atlantis,"the physicalbridgeis mostimmediate the imagery; in in thelast six stanzastheimagedform transmuted themeaning is into
"0Letter to Waldo Frank (12 Aug. 192(1), p. 272.

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Modern Language Notes

of the symbol, that the suggestive so of arc, union,and harmony the Bridge are more nearly in view than the physical form. Love as harmony, music, is the principleof the system. In its musical or the " pattern Bridgeforms One arc synoptic all tidesbelow." But of evenin the realization the mystic of memories theway that of beauty, led throughthe dance hall and the subway are containedin the "cypher-script time" in whichthe traveller, of
through smoking pyres of love and death, Searches the timeless laugh of mythic spears

or the eternalrejoicingout of death throughthe pyresand spears whichrecall the mythicdestruction Maquokeetaand the eternity of gained thereby.The human paradox of search that containsdefeat, life that contains destruction, recalled throughTyre and Troy, is Jason and Aeolus. But fromthe ominouscapes the Bridge rises, " lifting nightto cycloramic crest/Of deepestday- " and translating timeintothe unionof manyin one,thepsalm of Cathay. The symbolic Bridge rises out of the physicalimage as we move backacrossthecontinent surmount includebothspace and time, to and where eyes must "stammer throughthe pangs of dust and steel." Vision is regained and made whole by the physical sky (like the Bridge),
the circular, indubitable frieze Of heaven's meditation, yoking wave To kneeling wave.

" The " steeledCognizance of theBridge-its meaningand its formholds " In single chrysalis the manytwain." Generation and union are suggested the image of the chrysalis in and in the bridgeas "the stitchand stallionglow" of stars. Again, as a ship it moveson the voyage, and its " intrinsic Myth "-spiritual visionthrough totallife" is time-borne body-borne Throughthe brightdrenchand fabric and of our veins." In all the land oppositionsare joined, as tears "sustain " and life revolving through birthand harvestis a " sweet torment." The Bridge is river-throated time and the physical (in world), but out of it is the ascentof the eternalwingedDeity. The culminationof the mysticvision is the ineffable white flower, here calledAnemone but corresponding Dante's greatwhiterose, to heaven's still center. The flower petals of light" spendthe suns about us," as Mary in the May flowers down her golden hair, shiningin the let " " way-up tower.

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The last sectionsof The Bridge developfromthe singlemovement of " Three Songs," but theyare morethan a simplerecapitulation of the themein otherlanguage. The " Songs" trace only the sexual motif,while the following poems embodythat elementin its larger context: the whole being of man as he wars throughtime to find someeternalorder. That such a spiritualvisionmightbe best accomplishedthrough wholereality life,centering its complete in the of body and its creative is force, suggested thesepoems. by Many have justly criticizedThe Bridge as a " Mythof America" forits chaotichistorical sense and forthe apparent and chronological lack of continuity betweenseveral of its sections. Yet it is fair to look again at the poemwitha littlemoreof Crane's eye. In the first " place, he considered poem symphonic, " mysticalsynthesis of his a Americain which history, fact,and location " all have to be transfigured into abstractform.. . ." ' It was not to be a narrative epic whichwould proceedin historical in sequencebut an evolution which idea and motifwouldin recurrence construct imaginative the bodyof the poem as an " organicpanorama."12 Thus one mightdare to say that The Bridge is not the Mythof Americain an historical senseat all, but a construction ritualcelebration the spiritual and of consciousness and creative forcepossibleto America. Because present and past are oftensimultaneous and chronology distorted(as in a Faulkner novel), The Bridge must rely on a psychological orderthat is more intuitive, emotional, and mystical than rational. A further consideration, then,is that Crane's poetictechnique used not the ordinary historical dialecticlogic,but an organicprinciple or whichhe called " the logic of metaphor," " the dynamics metaor of phor."13 Crane'suse of wordslike organicand dynamic his discusin sions of his poeticintentions suggeststhat formis to be foundmost in naturally growth and movement. One crucialthinghereis thatthe of sensibility the reader is requiredto fuse the relationships the of as metaphor it evolves. The poem is not given to the reader,but the readerhelps to createit. Thus the techniquedemandssomething of the generative qualityof life itself. In a largersensethan the individual metaphor, this organicprincipleis exactlyillustrated transby
"Letter to Gorham Munson (18 Feb. 1923), pp. 124-125. See also Letter to Waldo Frank (18 Jan. 1926), pp. 232-233. "Letter to Otto H. Kahn (12 Sept. 1927), p. 305. 13 " General Aims and Theories," in Philip Horton, Hart Crane (New York, 1937), pp. 323-328. See also Crane's letter to Harriet Monroe in Poetry, xxix, 36-38.

Modern Language Notes

Mutations imagery. As one formblends into another,a kind of in goes on withinthe poem,a cycle of life that repeatsbut generation in is neverexactly the same. The readerparticipates its psychological we movement, ritualcreation. Some of the urgency feel in Crane's its in and poetry perhapsthe sensewe have of growth the poemitself, is the logic we can recognizeis an imaginativeprogression through patternand image. in Transmutation imagery one organictechnique The Bridge. of is The few exampleswhich have been shown here may indicate that someunityout of chaos,and through veryform Cranedid attempt the like " Three Songs" of life itself. The testis thatindividualelements are completewhen placed in their setting,no longer erratic and in incidental the poem. Theyare actuallyliberated meaningwhen, to which paradoxically, theyare confined the cyclesof transmutation to help to make up the wholesymphony The Bridge. of
University of Nebraska BERNICE SLOTE

Tradition and Santayana Literary

writer GeorgeSanby letterwas sentto the present The following tayanaon September 1949.1 It was an answerto a seriesof ques1, with T. S. Eliot. Its substanceis relationships tionson his literary of fromthe standpoint its apparentdisavowalof Eliot's interesting has or judgmentthat the great artist," consciously unconsciously," into the that is, an awarenessor an intuition " a sense of tradition," " problem order." Santayana,at least as I read his letter,denies of and common the need of any devotionto "a commoninheritance to cause" of artisticinspiration. From his reference RobertBridges' did evaluationof Shakespeare,one gathersthat the playwright not himselfin orderto obtain his unique posiand sacrifice " surrender tion" in literature.2 Rather Santayana traces the vigor and the by of originality thelatter'sgeniusto the tastesfostered " the Renaisone of the sance." To extend implications thisconviction, can logically
1 It is not included in the recent collection, The Letters of George Santayana, ed. Daniel Cory (New York, 1955). 2 " The Function of Criticism," Essays in Modern Literary Criticism, ed. Ray B. West (New York, 1952), pp. 137-38.

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