Liminality and communitas in the Beat Generation
Dissertation, Universität Vechta, 2016
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| Sprache: | eng |
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Frankfurt am Main
Peter Lang Edition
2017
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Tag hinzufügen | Zusammenfassung: | Dissertation, Universität Vechta, 2016 The Beat Generation formed during mid-twentieth century America. The young authors faced a time of major historical impacts on the nation. Dissatisfied with society around them, they sought its margins and established a generation which questioned the status quo and influenced the following Hippie counterculture of the 1960s. Based on the studies by the anthroplogist Victor Turner on liminality and communitas, this dissertation investigates Turner's concepts in the literature and lifestyles of the Beat Generation authors Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. Coming from a society which no longer requires rites of passage, the Beats willingly stepped aside from it. The journeys from coast to coast Kerouac documented in his novels can be seen as rites of passage marked by liminal space, time, and movement. His travels can even be compared to religious pilgrimages. However, he could not fully escape the liminal state during which he developed communitas with his fellow Beats since he questioned his own motives. William S. Burroughs, who functioned as an elder for the younger transitional Beats, portrayed his own liminal lifestyle in his novels with ambiguous and monstrous characters as well as liminal space. The liminal poet Allen Ginsberg desired communitas and implemented this in his poetry voicing his opposition to the status quo. While outside the confines of society, the Beats contemplated it, created antistructure, and propagated their beliefs in what can be considered liminoid literature in hopes to make changes to greater society. Of course, the Beats are only one link in the chain of various countercultures. |
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| Beschreibung: | Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 303-316 |
| Beschreibung: | 316 Seiten 22 x 15 cm |
| ISBN: | 3631727690 3-631-72769-0 9783631727690 978-3-631-72769-0 |