Overview

Full Product Details

9781433189074

Table of Contents

Reviews

“This re-evaluation of Kerouac and Ginsberg includes their dialogical and intertextual inscription in a vast and influential lineage formed by authors such as Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau, allowing for a critical revision of the place of these authors of the Beat Generation in the History of American and World Literature. However, this suggestive essay goes further: it shows the dynamic relationship between Myth and History. The attention given to several mythological figures (Thanatos, Sisyphus, Dionysus, Moloch, and others) allows us to discover an important mythical subtext that deepens the epidermal and ideological meaning of Kerouac’s and Ginsberg’s writings, highlighting the continual tension between conflicting forces that fight each other (solar and apollonian structures vs/ nocturnal, transgressive and Dionysian imaginary).” —Carlos F. Clamote Carreto, Professor of French Literature, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa “The Paradox of Thanatos takes a fresh look at the Beat Generation and its ambiguous aesthetic tenets. Shuttling back and forth between self-destruction and self-liberation, Kerouac and Ginsberg, who are at the center of this new study of 1950s American counterculture, have often been (mis-)understood as prophets of drugs, sex, and the doom of individual creativity. As Harma convincingly argues, however, while revelling in the destruction of the creative self by the stifling forces of mass-consumption and greed, the Beats also managed to forge a more positive vision, and thus carve out a spiritual space that allowed for transcendence and (aesthetic) redemption. Harma’s is a timely study that adds an important new angle on postwar American society and its countercultural critics.” —Klaus Benesch, Full Professor of English and American Studies; LMU, International Research Professor; LMU, The University of Munich

This re-evaluation of Kerouac and Ginsberg includes their dialogical and intertextual inscription in a vast and influential lineage formed by authors such as Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau, allowing for a critical revision of the place of these authors of the Beat Generation in the History of American and World Literature. However, this suggestive essay goes further: it shows the dynamic relationship between Myth and History. The attention given to several mythological figures (Thanatos, Sisyphus, Dionysus, Moloch, and others) allows us to discover an important mythical subtext that deepens the epidermal and ideological meaning of Kerouac's and Ginsberg's writings, highlighting the continual tension between conflicting forces that fight each other (solar and apollonian structures vs/ nocturnal, transgressive and Dionysian imaginary). -Carlos F. Clamote Carreto, Professor of French Literature, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa The Paradox of Thanatos takes a fresh look at the Beat Generation and its ambiguous aesthetic tenets. Shuttling back and forth between self-destruction and self-liberation, Kerouac and Ginsberg, who are at the center of this new study of 1950s American counterculture, have often been (mis-)understood as prophets of drugs, sex, and the doom of individual creativity. As Harma convincingly argues, however, while revelling in the destruction of the creative self by the stifling forces of mass-consumption and greed, the Beats also managed to forge a more positive vision, and thus carve out a spiritual space that allowed for transcendence and (aesthetic) redemption. Harma's is a timely study that adds an important new angle on postwar American society and its countercultural critics. -Klaus Benesch, Full Professor of English and American Studies; LMU, International Research Professor; LMU, The University of Munich

Author Information

Educated in France and in the United Kingdom, Tanguy Harma received his PhD in English in 2018 from Goldsmiths, University of London. His international experience in higher education (University of Minnesota, Goldsmiths, University of Southampton) brought him this year to Istanbul Kültür University, where currently teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature and continues his exploration of the writings of the American counterculture.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available