INDIAN MYTHS AS THE BASIS OF HART CRANE’S MYTHMAKING

Abstract

The article focuses on the specific significance of the myths of the indigenous peoples of North and South America for the formation of a special artistic creation of Crane’s “myth to God” (the definition of the poet). The purpose of the research is to identify and analyze the ancient mythologies used by Hart Crane to construct the future of America, which will be inspired by the new myth. This new myth, according to Crane, will emerge from the synthesis of all mythologies existing on the American continent, the achievements of all cultures whose peoples participated in the discovery and development of the New World, and the incredible success in the development of civilization that the Americans achieved. Crane’s poetry space is homogeneous. Probably somewhat eclectic, but homogeneity is achieved by a purposeful orientation to the subordination of all components to the American idea, that is, Crane’s space is a poetic melting pot. In accordance with the indicated homogeneity, in conducting the research the synergy of literary methods is used: biographical, which made it possible to follow the works from the initial idea to their creation; cultural-historical, due to which the characteristic features of the era of modernism are identified in the poet’s works; comparative, which makes it possible to compare the elements of work of different poets (not only modernists, but also remotely distant literary periods); ritual-mythological, intended for direct analysis of the paradigm of Indian myths; historical-functional, which made it possible to identify the reception of Crane’s works from total non-acceptance to the granting of program status; systemic-holistic, to which all the above-mentioned methods are subordinated, because it helps to highlight the main core (idea) of works (Crane’s “myth to God”), to which all other images, motives, plots, etc. are subordinated. In Hart Crane’s works, almost every word holds a mythological potential, it always functions in its original meaning, based on which the mythical context prevails. It can be the name of Pocahontas or the name of Atlantis, stirring up myths about the Indians and the conquest of America by the whites, or about the love of Pocahontas and Captain Smith, about Plato’s mythological Atlantis and the migration of the first settlers across the Atlantic, which in Crane’s time had also become a myth. Or maybe the seagull is one of Crane’s favorite images: an ordinary bird that circles over the Brooklyn Bridge and a permanent character in Native American mythology, in which the boundlessness of freedom and the ingenious mind of a trickster are combined. That is one verbal marker of Crane – the seagull – holds and simultaneously produces several meanings, from concreteness to the symbolism of the myth, as the majestic image of the Brooklyn Bridge, which removed the mythological dimension, became the new myth created by Hart Crane.

Keywords

• mythopoetics
• indian myths
• modernism
• national identity
• “american dream”
• “myth to god”