The Shadow of a Myth 83skepticism about his “myth of America,” Crane stated the problem in his
own terms. “Intellectually judged,” he wrote to Waldo Frank, “the whole
theme and project seems more and more absurd.” He felt his materials were
not authentic, that “these forms, materials, dynamics are simply nonexistent
in the world.” As for Brooklyn Bridge: “The bridge today has no significance
beyond an economical approach to shorter hours, quicker lunches
behaviorism and toothpicks.” A month later he had recovered his faith. “I
feel an absolute music in the air again,” he wrote to Frank, “and some
tremendous rondure floating somewhere.” He had composed the “Proem,”
in which the bridge stands firmly opposed to the cities. He had beaten back
the nightmarish view of the bridge, and could now proceed with his aim of
translating a mechanical structure into a threshold of life.^10
But Crane could not dismiss the nightmare. He had to account for it,
and he did so in a subtle fashion. Later in 1926 he arrived at the title for his
last section: “Atlantis.” Until then, it had been “Bridge Finale.” The
destination of the protagonist’s journey, like Columbus’s, had been called
Cathay, the traditional symbol of the East. Atlantis was the sunken island of
the West—older even than the Orient. What does Crane intend by his new
title? Does he mean to identify East and West? Or to introduce the idea of
the decline of greatness at the very moment his hero’s journey is
accomplished? What precisely does Atlantis add to our “cognizance” of the
bridge?^11
The fable of Atlantis had been as important as Cathay to the discovery
of the New World. Originally, it was a somewhat mystical legend told by
Plato in Timaeusand Critias,concerning a land in the western ocean (the
Atlantic), founded by Poseidon, god of the sea. Once all-powerful, the nation
had grown lustful, and was punished for its pride with earthquakes and
floods; in a single day it sunk forever. But the legend remained, and during
the fifteenth century, was popular among sailors. The island was believed to
be the place where seven Portuguese bishops, fleeing the Moors, had
founded seven golden cities. Sailors hoped to rediscover this land, where
Christians still lived in piety and wealth. To discover Atlantis, or to reach
Cathay—these were the leading motifs among the navigators who sailed
westward in the fifteenth century. No one, not even Columbus, dreamed that
an entirely new world lay between the sunken world and the legendary riches
of the Orient.^12
Crane thus had historical grounds for identifying Atlantis and Cathay.
As it turned out, the discovery of America proved both legends to be
illusions: neither had the geographical position attributed to it by
Renaissance navigators. Both, however, remained active myths—Cathay