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Durham E-Theses Gaze toward paradise: Hart Crane and the poetry of quest Buckingham, Mary How to cite: Buckingham, Mary (2003) Gaze toward paradise: Hart Crane and the poetry of quest, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4053/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Gaze toward Paradise: Hart Crane and the Poetry of Quest A thesis submitted in September 2003 for the degree of PhD to the University of Durham Mary Buckingham A copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Department of English Studies 2 8 APR 2004 Abstract Hart Crane's poetry has always been the subject of widely differing views. In recent years, after a long period of neglect, there has been an attempt to find a new sense of the poetry's meaning and value. There have been notable biographical and contextual works by Paul Mariani (2000) and Paul Giles (1986) as well as provocative studies which dwell upon Crane's sexuality, but there is still scope for a work that concentrates in detail upon Crane's themes of quest and the inspirational importance of the female 'other' he pursues. This thesis seeks to develop the tradition of close reading of Crane established by R.W.B. Lewis (1967) and Sherman Paul (1972). Where it differs from these excellent studies is in the emphasis laid upon the theme of quest and, in particular, the stress on the interplay between those different impulses which form the basis of Crane's finest work. The thesis tracks Hart Crane's gaze toward some idea of betterment, the other side of which is Hell. It concentrates mainly, but not entirely, on Crane's longer poems in the belief that in these works his major successes are found. After an introduction which explains the aim and approach of the thesis, what follows are studies of the poems. Chapter one examines 'For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen,' while chapter two explores 'Voyages.' Chapter three is the first of four chapters upon Crane's major achievement, The Bridge; it introduces the poem and examines the first two sections. The fourth, fifth and sixth chapters follow Crane on his journey through the poem. The thesis is brought to a conclusion in a coda which argues that the difficulties associated with reading Crane should be re-assessed. 1 Contents Contents 1 Statement of Copyright 2 Acknowledgments 3 Abbreviations 4-6 Notes on Texts and Citations 7 Introduction 8 Chapter 1 'For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen.' 47 Chapter 2 'Voyages.' 90 Chapter 3 'Introduction to The Bridge, 'Proem,' 'Ave Maria.' 118 Chapter 4 'Powhatan's Daughter.' 154 Chapter 5 'Cutty Sark,' Cape Hatteras' and 'Three Songs.' 234 Chapter 6 'Quaker Hill,' The Tunnel' and 'Atlantis.' 269 Chapter 7 After The Bridge. 323 Works Cited and Consulted 346 2 Declaration and Statement of Copyright The research presented in this thesis is the original work of the author, unless stated otherwise. None of this work has been submitted for a degree in this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without their prior consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 3 Acknowledgements My thanks to Professor Michael O' Neill for his help and patience and to the University of Durham for a two year studentship. Love and thanks to Chris, who has supported me emotionally, financially and technically through this thesis. To my family, Tanya and Sam, Paul and Tracey, and the next generation of Zoe, Katie and Leon. Last but not least, my mother and my father. 4 List of Abbreviations. Works by Hart Crane CP Complete Poems of Hart Crane. Ed. Marc Simon. Rpt. of The Poems of Hart Crane. 1989. New York: Liveright, 1993. LHC The Letters of Hart Crane: 1916-1932. Ed. Brom Weber. Berkeley: U of California P, 1965. CPSL The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane. Ed. Brom Weber. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1966. 'For The Marriage of Faustus and Helen' F&H 1 'For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen I' F&H 2 'For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen IF F&H 3 'For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen III' 'Voyages' V-1 'Voyages r V-2 'Voyages IT V-3 'Voyages III' V-4 'Voyages IV V-5 'Voyages V V-6 'Voyages VI' 5 The Bridge AM 'Ave Maria' (Section I) At 'Atlantis' (Section VIII) CH 'Cape Hatteras' (Section IV) CS 'Cutty Sark' (Section III) Dan 'The Dance' ('Powhatan's Daughter,' Section II) HD The Harbor Dawn' ('Powhatan's Daughter,' Section 11) Ind 'Indiana' ('Powhatan's Daughter,' Section II) NWG 'National Winter Gardens' (Three Songs,' Section V) QH 'Quaker Hill' (Section VI) Riv 'The River' (From 'Powhatan's Daughter,' Section II) SC 'Southern Cross' (From 'Three Songs,' Section V) TBB 'To Brooklvn Bridge' ('Proem' to The Bridge) Tun The Tunnel' (Section VII) TED 'To Emily Dickinson' Va 'Virginia' (From 'Three Songs,' Section V) VW 'Van Winkle' (From 'Powhatan's Daughter,' Section II) Individual poems AMT 'At Melville's Tomb" B Tow 'The Broken Tower' Chap 'Chaplinesque' Int 'Interior' KW 'Key West' 6 Leg 'Legend' Lege 'Legende' NL 'North Labrador' OC 'O Carib Isle' RR 'Repose of Rivers' Rec 'Recitative' WM 'The Wine Menagerie' 7 Notes on Texts and Citations If not stated otherwise, I quote from the poems in Complete Poems of Hart Crane, (New York: Liveright, 1993), edited by Marc Simon. Abbreviations refer to the title of the poem while numbers refer to line numbers. 8 Introduction 'Who asks for me, the Shelley of my age, must lay his heart out for my bed and board.'1 This thesis examines the working of a dominant impulse manifested by Crane's poetry; namely the attempt to sustain imaginative values in a modern age which he viewed as hostile to such values. Central to my explorations is study of the way in which the poet and the role of poetry are presented in Crane's work, especially in three longer poems, The Marriage of Faustus and Helen,' 'Voyages,' and The Bridge, in a period described by Waldo Frank as 'one lacking in philosophical synthesis, without a feeling of unity and wholeness in itself, without any shared religious or ideological beliefs which might tend to unify the age.'2 This was the world which Crane wanted to transform rather than transcend, a situation rationalized by the poet in a letter to Frank: The validity of a work of art is situated in contemporary reality to the extent that the artist must honestly anticipate the realization of his vision in 'action' (as an actively operating principle of communal works and faith), and I don't mean by this that his procedure requires any bona fide evidences directly and 1 Robert Lowell, Life Studies (London: Faber, 1959) 69. 2 Brom Weber, Hart Crane: A Biographical and Critical Study (New York: Bodley P, 1948) 217. 9 personally signalled, nor even any physical signs or portents.3 Crane believed that the modern world stifled imagination: 'The tragic quandary (or agon) of the modern world derives from the paradoxes that an inadequate system of rationality forces on the living consciousness.'4 The poet's self- assigned task is to free that same imagination through the medium of the poem. Michael Schmidt believes that this task ends with the poem: 'When his poem is finished—or abandoned—a poet believes he has made a statement, enacted a process or completed an experience which, properly and sensitively approached, will inform, affect, or act upon a reader in a specific way.'5 While the poems suggest the hope of such an outcome, the importance of the poet's role is at the root of his own belief about the role of the poet. Crane's belief in his role is summed up in a letter he wrote to Harriet Monroe: 'The nuances of feeling and observation in a poem may well call for certain liberties which you claim the poet has no right to take. I am simply making the claim that the poet does have the authority, and that to deny it is to limit the scope of the medium so considerably as to outlaw some of the richest genius of the past.'6 Crane's poems seek to rectify his world through vision, a word used in this thesis to mean a powerfully imaginative way of apprehending reality; to depict vision, the poet manipulates traditional symbols of inspiration from past and present to provide what he calls 'scaffolding': 'The 3 Brom Weber, ed., The Letters of Hart Crane (Berkeley: U of California P, 1965) 260. Hereafter referred to as LHC.