Speaking the Unspeakable

Allen Ginsberg's Paradigm of Prophetic Poetry
2025
ISBN: 978-3-506-79828-2
Verlag: Brill I Schoeningh

Buch, Englisch, Band 44, 382 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 674 g

Reihe: Beiträge zur englischen und amerikanischen Literatur

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), one of the most important and widely read American poets of the 20th century, depicted himself as the prophet of a new America. Scholars and critics have echoed this self-description and turned prophecy into a key theme of his life, but their understanding of this notion often remains vague and ill-defined. Speaking the Unspeakable constructs a flexible definition of prophecy from the poet’s own perspective and applies it to his entire work chronologically to capture its developments, idiosyncrasies and tensions. In addition, it applies Bourdieu’s cultural sociology to explore how Ginsberg used his self-depiction to situate himself in the literary field of postwar America and claim a position at the forefront of the avant-garde in the transitioning period from modernism to postmodernism. Ginsberg’s esoteric seeker religiousness and his exuberant claims to epiphanic experiences are intricately linked, as this study shows, to his literary success.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Faust, Jonas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter

Über Autor(innen)

Jonas Faust is a research associate and coordinator of the M.A. program at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA). He obtained his PhD at the University of Heidelberg in 2024. His research interests include the Beat Generation (particularly Ginsberg and Burroughs), American Transcendentalism, British Romanticism, Modernism/Postmodernism and the intersections of literature, sociology, philosophy and religion.