ENG364Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Beat Generation, Metonymy, Defamiliarization
Document Summary
Dad = poet and teacher; mom suffered from mental illness (schizophrenia?) Beat generation: 50s and 60s poets that were radical to social norms. First met at columbia university in 1944 against stifling confomity. B at: those who suffered are blessed deep religious investment. Walt whitman: tradition of american poet trying to include all american experiences. Religion: mysticism (idea that poetry should be creating an experience) Prophecy: from religious authority to speak to and diagnose society and offer redemption/cure for this. Unity in everything his vision of what poetry should be like. Madness: holy madness transcendence from ordinary experience -> enlightenment. Mental illness concerns with grasps of reality. How madness and nonconformity come together society emphasized conformity over health (line between mental illness and what is being told = state of madness) Post wwii integration and inability to fit in. Personal, visceral testimony deeply connected to the individual and the sensory experience. Appears in the form of a catalogue.
