Hip Sublime : Beat Writers and the Classical Tradition

Abstract

In their continual attempt to transcend what they perceived as the superficiality, commercialism, and precariousness of life in post-World War II America, the Beat writers turned to the classical authors who provided, on the one hand, a discourse of sublimity to help them articulate their desire for a purity of experience, and, on the other, a venerable literary heritage.

This volume examines for the first time the intersections between the Beat writers and the Greco-Roman literary tradition. Many of the “Beats” were university-trained and highly conscious of their literary forebears, frequently incorporating their knowledge of Classical literature into their own avant-garde, experimental practice. The interactions between writers who fashioned themselves as new and iconoclastic, and a venerable literary tradition often seen as conservative and culturally hegemonic, produced fascinating tensions and paradoxes, which are explored here by a diverse group of contributors.