Hart Crane's Platonic Myth

Q NE STRIKING FEAT`URE of Hart Crane's The Bridge is poet's seemingly unorthodox conception of myth. Although several scholars have made known Crane's use of myth, they have not concerned themselves with exposing poem as myth-an idea explicit in its dedicatory proem. Furthermore, although various critics have been successful in establishing Crane as a poet by equating his Platonic idealism with romantic mysticism, this approach has not proved precise enough to lend total coherence to symbolism, metaphysical imagery, and structure of poem, nor in particular, to explain poet's use of term myth.' By emphasizing, however, Crane's Platonism-by opposing it to notions of romantic mysticism-one may gain this needed insight, and in so doing, add meaning to Crane's poetic principle the logic of metaphor, establish a structure for The Bridge, and uncover Platonic sources for his myth of Brooklyn Bridge

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