Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Paradox of Thanatos: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: From Self-Destruction to Self-Liberation

The Paradox of Thanatos: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: From Self-Destruction to Self-Liberation

Harma, Tanguy
Hakutani, Yoshinobu

Hardcover

Series: Modern American Literature, Book 74

Literary CriticismFiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 1433189070
ISBN13: 9781433189074
Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
Published: May 31 2022
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

More often associated with hedonism and cheap thrills than with notions of alienation and suffering, Beat literature has rarely been envisaged from the perspective of the paradoxical dynamics at play in the writings. What this book evidences is that the sacrosanct quest for transcendence staged by Kerouac and by Ginsberg is underpinned, primarily, by a trope of nullification that acts as a menace for the self. This tropism for destruction and death is not only emblematic of their works, it is also used as a literary strategy that seeks to conquer the fear of self-annihilation through the writing itself. It is precisely this interplay--approached through an Existentialism that simultaneously converges upon the Transcendentalist legacy of Beat writing--which probes the paradoxical dimension of the texts, enabling the mythological figure of Thanatos to take centre stage.

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