Understanding Jack Kerouac

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-1-57003-846-4
Verlag: UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA PR

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 131 mm x 203 mm, Gewicht: 261 g

Reihe: Understanding Contemporary American Literature

This is a concise companion to the novels of the king of the Beats. ""Understanding Jack Kerouac"" introduces readers to what Matt Theado calls Kerouac's 'unwieldy accretion of published work' - fiction, poetry, nonfiction, selected letters, religious writing, and 'true-story novels'. Presenting this cultural icon of the Beat Generation primarily as a writer rather than as a social rebel or media celebrity, Theado elucidates the reasons Kerouac's reputation has outlived disparaging beatnik associations and why his writings continue to attract an expanding readership. Theado takes a book-by-book approach to the sometimes-confusing canon and develops a framework for understanding Kerouac's thematic concerns, writing techniques, and artistic evolution. Proposing that the real legend of Jack Kerouac is the saga of a writer at work, Theado suggests that as recognition of Kerouac's artistic achievement grows, the Duluoz Legend - Kerouac's series of barely fictionalized re-creations of his life - outgrows the genre of autobiography and becomes an intimate chronicle of a writer's stylistic maturation. Theado traces Kerouac's development as a crafter of language and contends that spontaneous prose, Kerouac's literary hallmark, may prove to be his chief claim to literary longevity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Über Autor(innen)

Matt Theado is a professor of English at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and the author of The Beats: A Literary Reference.