The Routledge Handbook of International Beat Literature

Description

Beat literature? Have not the great canonical names long grown familiar? Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs. Likewise the frontline texts, still controversial in some quarters, assume their place in modern American literary history. On the Road serves as Homeric journey epic. "Howl" amounts to Beat anthem, confessional outcry against materialism and war. Naked Lunch, with its dark satiric laughter, envisions a dystopian world of power and word virus. But if these are all essentially America-centered, Beat has also had quite other literary exhalations and which invite far more than mere reception study. These are voices from across the Americas of Canada and Mexico, the Anglophone world of England, Scotland or Australia, the Europe of France or Italy and from the Mediterranean of Greece and the Maghreb, and from Scandinavia and Russia, together with the Asia of Japan and China. This anthology of essays maps relevant other kinds of Beat voice, names, texts. The scope is hemispheric, Atlantic and Pacific, West and East. It gives recognition to the Beat inscribed in languages other than English and reflective of different cultural histories. Likewise the majority of contributors come from origins or affiliations beyond the US, whether in a different English or languages spanning Spanish, Danish, Turkish, Greek, or Chinese. The aim is to recognize an enlarged Beat literary map, its creative internationalism. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Beat Canon Beat Counter-Canon US Beat Abroad International Beat Beat Across Borders Beat Anglosphere Beat Europe Beat North in Europe Beat Mediterranean Beat Asia Perspectives Notes Part I Canada and Mexico 1 Canada Beats: A Complex Legacy Notes Works Cited 2 The Beat Presence in Mexican Literature The Mexican Cultural Background in the 1950s: The Pursuit of Modernization Modern Mexican Literature Mexican Beat Writers Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Part II The English-Speaking World 3 Beat Britain: Poetic Vision and Division in Albion’s “Underground” Introduction: Opening the Beat Floodgates? Beat Impressions and Transatlantic Tensions “The tunnel … in which all our voices echo” The Way-Stations of Beat Britain Performance, Humor, and Gender Conclusion: Albion and Beyond Notes Works Cited 4 Cosmopolitan Scum: A Genealogy of Beat in Subaltern Scottish Literature Works Cited 5 Beat Australia: Hydra to Balmain Origins—Hydra and the Hinterland The Bohemian Revolt in Australia Dissidence and Dinginess in Balmain The Age of Ginsberg and Whitlam The Australian Sixties Legacy Notes Works Cited Part III Western Europe 6 Êtes-vous Beat? Contemporary French Beat Writing The Missed Connections of the Late 1950s and Lebel’s Influence The Electric Gang Sylvain Courtoux and Joël Hubaut The Papy Beat Generation: Alain Jégou and Lucien Suel Notes Works Cited Further Reading 7 Children of Anarchy: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Italian Beats A Historical Backdrop Milan and Turin Fernanda Pivano Gianni Milano Rome Aldo Piromalli Women Notes Works Cited Further Reading 8 Beat Influences in Dutch and Flemish Literature Prose Poetry Flanders Prose Poetry Notes Works Cited 9 Transmuting Beat Energies in the Belgian Francophone Matrix: MaelstrÖm ReEvolution or the Brussels Reincarnation of ... Francophone Belgium: An Exciting if Challenging Hybridity Beat Energies Ready for Transmutation Beat “Energetic Avatars”: A Brief History The Local Is the Planetary: Towards a Beat Cosmopolitanism Which Streams of Beat Experimentalism towards a “Second Breath”? Coda: maelstrÖm as Beat Tribe Notes Works Cited 10 German Beats: Friendship and Collaboration Beginnings Carl Weissner Jügen Ploog, Udo Breger, Wolf Wondratschek Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Jörg Fauser Thomas Meinecke Conclusion Notes Works Cited 11 Beat Authorship and Beat Influences in Austrian Literature The Beat Bookkeeper: Ernst Jandl (and the Vienna Group) Beat Theater: Wolfgang Bauer The Beat Nobel Prize: Elfriede Jelinek The Beat Teachers: Christian Ide Hintze, Christian Loidl, Fritz Ostermayer, and the Vienna Poetry School (and ruth weiss) Works Cited 12 Beat Affinities in Spanish Poetry Claraboya and the First Contacts First Beats Transitional Poets Contemporary Beat Conclusion Notes Works Cited 13 Activists and Stuntmen: Envisioning Polish Beat The Rise of the New Wave Stunting Stanzas Notes Works Cited Part IV Northern Europe 14 Russian Beat: Wilderness of Mirrors Notes Works Cited 15 Denmark’s To Beat or Not to Beat: Turèll, Ulrich, Laugesen Uncle Danny Writing Silence, Writing Nothingness Just Another Star in the American Flag We Need Character! Something Is Rotten in the State of Freeland Carrying the Horn and Seeing the Light Love, More, Much More Jazz and Poetry Laugesen Enters the Landscape The Danish Triumvirate of Beat Notes Works Cited 16 Norwegian Beat Culture: Reading Beat and Being Beat in Oslo in the 1950s Introduction Norway in the Post-War Years Beat and Avant-Garde Movements in Academic Literature Introducing the Beats: Translation and Inspiration A Norwegian Road Novel and a Court Case Against Literature Beat Poetry and the Oslo Underground Countercultural Venues: Club 7, Tronsmo Bookstore and Skippergata Beat Culture in Art Conclusion Notes Works Cited 17 Swedish Beat: Sture Darlström, Ulf Lundrell and the Influence of the Beat Generation in Modern Swedish Literature Sture Dahlström Dahlström in Sweden and the World The Philosophy of Sture Dahlström Inspiration from the Beat Generation Ulf Lundell Lundell’s Music Lundell during the Eighties and Beyond Beat Poetry in Sweden Conclusion Work Cited 18 Beat Poetry in Finland in the 1960s “What Have We Become?” Anselm Hollo’s “Superman as Child” Rewriting “Howl”: Pekka Kejonen’s “Other Howl” and Kalevi Lappalainen’s “They I-II” Markku Into’s “Divine Comedy I” Beat and Finnish Literature from the Global 60s to the Present Works Cited Further Reading Part V The Mediterranean 19 The Beat Generation and Contemporary Greek Poetry Notes Works Cited 20 Beat Turkey: A Belated Influence The Underground Re-Emerges A Shared Challenge to the Mainstream A Turkish Beat—küçük iskender Continuing the Countercultural Struggle Conclusion Works Cited 21 Moroccan Beat Writers: Mrabet, Choukri, Layachi Notes Works Cited Part VI The East 22 Beat Japan: Shiraishi’s Jazz Scroll and Sakaki’s Foot Trail Beat Entrance Kazuko Shiraishi Nanao Sakaki Perspectives Notes Works Cited 23 The Beats on China and Chinese “Beats”: Cross Cultural Influences, Impact and Legacy Beat Literature in China The Beats on China Chinese “Beats” Concluding Remarks Works Cited Index