ered all the capes. The voyage of Crane/ Whitman/ Columbus is only the beginning of a new "cape," a new problem, but Crane's solution to this is an affirmation of the vision, a conviction that the poet, by following the Orphic tradition, will triumph "not soon, nor suddenly" but eventually.
To make "Cape Hatteras" represent the machine age in rhythm as well as in content, Crane extends the line to the point where it almost surrenders to prose because he wants to create rhythmically the frenetic yet monotonous pulsations of the machine. As he remarks to Caresse Crosby, "the line lengths are longer than in any other section--so long, in fact, that to preserve them unbroken across the page I think we ought to change our plan regarding page size" (Weber, p. 344).
This conflict of technology as a religion versus the vision is reminiscent of Henry Adams' "dynamo and Virgin"--a concept utilized by Crane friend Eugene O'Neill in The Dynamo.
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Publication Information: Book Title: Hart Crane's Harp of Evil: A Study of Orphism in the Bridge. Contributors: Jack C. Wolf - author. Publisher: Whitston. Place of Publication: Troy, NY. Publication Year: 1986. Page Number: 109.
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