The French genealogy of the Beat generation : Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac's appropriations of modern literature, from Rimbaud to Michaux / Véronique Lane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lane, Véronique, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--French influences.

American literature.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Beat generation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (268 pages) : illustrations, photographs

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

Summary:

"The Francophilia of the Beat circle in the New York of the mid-1940s is well known, as is the importance of the Beat Hotel in the Paris of the late 1950s and early 1960s, but how exactly did French literature and culture participate in the emergence of the Beat Generation? French modernism did much more than inspire its first major writers, it materially shaped their works, as this comparative study reveals through close textual analysis of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's appropriations of French literature and culture. Sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not, their appropriations take multiple forms, ranging from allusions, invocations and citations to adaptations and translations, and they involve a vast array of works, including the poetic realist films of Carné and Cocteau, the existentialist philosophy of Sartre, and the poems and novels of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Gide, Apollinaire, St.-John Perse, Artaud, Céline, Genet and Michaux. While clarifying the extent of Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac's engagements with French literature and culture, in-depth analysis of their textual appropriations emphasises differences in their views of literature, philosophy and politics, which help us understand the early Beat circle was divided from the start. The book's close-readings also transform our perception of Burroughs' cut-up practice, Kerouac's spontaneous prose, and Ginsberg's poetics of open secrecy."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Introduction : beyond "Rimbaud in a raincoat"

Burroughs or Kerouac's Rimbaud : to be or not to be "l i t e r a r y"

French poetic realist film in Kerouac's first bookmovie

Kerouac's humanism : from Celine and Dostoevsky to Proust

Burroughs' queer aesthetics : from Gide to Cocteau

Looking back on Ginsberg's "Howl" from "Apollinaire's grave"

The pitfalls of open secrecy : "Has nobody noticed St.-John Perse?"

Burroughs' (anti)humanism : Saint Genet and the last lifeboat

Burroughs, Michaux, and the future of literature

Conclusion : a purloined genealogy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781501325076

1501325078

9781501325052

1501325051

9781501325069

150132506X

OCLC:

1124370929