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Symbolism in the Bridge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Stanley K. Coffman Jr.
Stanley K. Coffman Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
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Extract

A great deal has been said about the failure of Hart Crane's The Bridge. I should like here to add a note upon an aspect of The Bridge which, as far as I know, has not been more than mentioned, probably because the finality of the usual criticism of the poem tends to obscure it. Perhaps the shortest way to what I propose is through Ezra Pound's definition of the Image: “that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.” As symbol providing a logical meaning for the poem, the Bridge has been examined and judgment delivered; but the pattern of language through which Crane hoped to make his symbol effective as intellectual and emotional complex, or, to use his terminology, a “new word, never before spoken and impossible to actually enunciate”, has been left almost untouched.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , March 1951 , pp. 65 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

1 The Collected Poems of Bart Crane, ed. with, an Introd. by Waldo Frank (New York, 1946).

2 “A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste”, Poetry, i, vi (March 1913), 200.

3 “General Aims and Theories.” See Philip Horton, Hart Crane (New York, 1937), p. 327 (App. I).

4 “The character of the heralded morning, ineffably sweet and fresh and limpid, but for the esthetic sense alone, and for purity without sentiment. I have itemized the night—but dare I attempt the cloudless dawn? (What subtle tie is this between one's soul and the break of day? Alike, and yet no two nights or morning shows ever exactly alike.) Preceded by an immense star, almost unearthly in its effusion of white splendor, with two or three long unequal spoke-rays of diamond radiance shedding down through the fresh morning air below—an hour of this, and then the sunrise.” Complete Prose Works (Boston, 1901), p. 112. See also p. 113.

5 Introd. to R. Ghil, Traité du Verbe. Quoted by Guy Michaud, La Doctrine Symboliste (Documents) (Paris, 1947), pp. 26–27.

6 Hart Crane (New York, 1948), p. 337. In the same passage Weber quotes the following comment about The Bridge made by Crane to Waldo Frank: “I have attempted to induce the same feelings of elation, etc.—like being carried foward and upward simultaneously—both in imagery, rhythm and repetition, that one experiences in walking across my beloved Brooklyn Bridge …”

7 Through “Indiana” there runs the imagery of gold, contrasting with other instances of this color—the rich gold of maize, the fire of the setting sun, and of earthly passion—but while the Gold Rush may be justifiable here historically, Crane's rather casual use of it to signify the illusory and sordid nature of the mercenary ideal is as hackneyed and senti-mental as the situation which is the basis for this section. Yet note that the circular motion of the dance with its indirect relation to the Bridge and thus to the ecstasy of the mystic's intuition, is ironically repeated in the gyrations of the burlesque queen in “National Winter Garden”; “Southern Cross” uses the imagery of light (the cool silver of dawn and of the stars, the other light of fire “slowly smoldering”), and “Virginia” turns this light into gold as it turns the ideal woman into the average modern girl.