Henry James: (1843–1916) Born: New York, USA. Died: Chelsea, London, England. British citizenship: 1915.

American siblings: philosopher, psychologist William James & diarist: Alice James. He attempted to support himself
as a free-lance writer in Rome, and then secured a position as Paris correspondent for the New York Tribune in the
1860s. He rejected America is favour of the Old World and he showed coldness toward democratic aspirations and
reforms. (He (the father) emphasized the role of suffering, submission, and rebirth in human life, and insisted on a
conservative view of marriage and the difference btw the sexes. But the family life also had an oppressive aspect -had
two younger brothers, William James, the eldest son, bright, aggressive, and adventurous, had an extraordinary
influence on Henry-The most valuable part of his education came from the fiction writers he devoured on his own—
Hawthorne, Balzac, George Sand, Turgenev, George Eliot, and many others. He seemed to have read everybody,
popular as well as esteemed, and later, a professional writer himself, he often rewrote what he'd read. In 1875, at
thirty-two, James permanently moved to the Old World and in the next few years wrote a number of moderately
realistic novels that contrasted the American and European social orders—Roderick Hudson (1875), The American
(1877), and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Meanwhile James's own realism remained qualified by a tendency to
represent life from a rarefied point of view., James's 1879 assessment of The Scarlet Letter in his book on Hawthorne
shows how a developing writer seeking to define his own delicate form of social realism tried to come to terms with a
great romantic predecessor. The Bostonians (1886), a novel with a substantial set of characters representing what
James saw as the conflicting commercial and idealistic strains of post-Civil War life, was his most ambitious attempt
to picture American society. During the final years of the century, he produced a series of strange and difficult fictions
unlike anything previously written—The Spoils of Poynton (1897), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw
(1898), and The Awkward Aga (1899). James deployed a labyrinthine style, the artful use of imagery and symbolism,
and systematically restricted points of view in order to focus with hypnotic concentration on what had been his
essential subject all along—the struggle to make sense of ambiguous and corrupting social situations. The cold reserve
each work looks at so critically may, indeed, be the author's own coldness—in which case that coldness produced its
greatest writing precisely by criticizing itself.) Henry James's realism: Through the type of realism that he employs,
he had a tremendous influence on the development of the novel. His realism is of a special sort: he was not concerned
with all aspects of life; there is nothing of the ugly, the vulgar, the common or the pornographic in James. He was not
concerned with poverty or with the middle class who had to struggle for a living. Instead, he was interested in
depicting a class of people who could afford to devote themselves to the refinements of life. He is regarded as one of
the key figures of 19th-century literary realism: ‘a text must first and foremost be realistic and contain a
representation of life that is recognisable to its readers’. Good novels, to James, show life in action. the subject matter
of most of James' works: concerned with an American of some degree of innocence meeting or becoming involved
with some European of experience. His greatest characters are almost always Americans, but some of his most
unpleasant characters are also Americans. What contrasts are there in James' works? - James contrasts the active life
of the American with the mannered life of the European aristocracy. Embodied in this contrast is the moral theme in
which the moral innocence of the American is contrasted with the knowledge and experience and evil of the
European. Americans: innocence, utility, spontaneity, sincerity, action, nature, natural, honesty, European: knowledge
and experience, form and ceremony, ritual, urbanity, inaction, art, artificial, evil
Daisy Miller: Daisy acts on first instinct, naturally following her reflexes and acting on her feelings. She is a symbol
of America's natural innocence and looser modes of custom. She is a type, representing the American flirt. She refuses
to obey the rules of European society (including that of the Americans abroad in Europe) and is thus a regular topic of
gossip. Themes of Daisy Miller: This novella serves as both; a psychological description of the mind of a young
woman, and an analysis of the traditional views of a society where she is a clear outsider. Henry James uses Daisy's
story to discuss what he thinks Europeans and Americans believe about each other, and more generally the prejudices
common in any culture.
Theodore Dreiser: German, Catholic family. Eldest son: changed his name to Dresser to sound less German; came
from the Midwest, Indiana, studied one year there at the university, only uni where there is a department for
Hungarian studies. After a year (financial problems), he went to work in Chicago, wrote his 1st, most important book,
Sister Carrie, 1900 - a landmark in American naturalistic fiction. Dreiser and communism: joined the communist
party in 1945. The world was divided, knew what happened in Europe, communists invaded east Germany, Hungary
but he still joined bc the American c. party was against everything the European communists did. American
naturalism: Jack London and Dreiser eg.: ppl's lives are determined by many factors (family background, education,
religion), - hereditary conditions, no free choice. Eg.: Sister Carrie: Protagonist based on one of his sisters, has many
lovers, becomes a famous actress but ppl want her to be punished for having a married lover, the writer explained her
story by these hereditary conditions. An American Tragedy: about a boy coming from a very religious family, wanted
to climb the social ladder. He commits a crime to be able to marry a wealthy woman, he murders his own pregnant
lover. At the end he is electrocuted. Published in 1925, antihero: Clyde Griffith. Roberta his lover, working class,
pregnant, Sandra his wife, a factory owner's daughter, rich. German Catholicism in the USA: 19th c, 2 million of
them. they emigrated after 1848 bc of the civil unrest in Germany - failed in its attempt to unify the German-speaking
states. Why didn't they feel themselves comfortable? - protestant identity was still strong in New England, religion
was more imp. there than anywhere else, so they didn't go there. In Typhoon: Ida's family - strict catholic morality -
had to go home right after school.
Mary Antin: 1881-1949. Born in Polotzk, The Pale of Settlement: was a western region of Imperial Russia with
varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond
which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. Lower East Side: a poor district in Ny.
Moved to Boston, same kind of accommodation like the ones in Lower e. s. Tenements - at least 3 floors high
building, small flats, 1 window, no gas, electricity, water. Was part of the orthodox branch of Jewish religion which
meant keeping to the traditions very strictly. The reception of The promised land: The book was immensely popular.
Along with Abraham Cahan’s fiction, The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), Antin’s The Promised Land is considered
by many to mark the beginning of Jewish literature in America. - What is (Im)migration Studies? - part of Cultural
Studies which is an academic field, it has the objective of understanding culture in all its complex forms and of
analysing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself. It includes the analysis of all marginal,
minority, border and peripheral entities. Ellis Island operated as the main immigrant entry facility of the US from 1892
to 1954. Migration to the USA: From 1836 to 1914, over 30 million Europeans migrated to the United States. The
peak year of European immigration was in 1907, when 1,285,349 persons entered the country. (The death rate on
these transatlantic voyages was high, during which one in seven travellers died.) Immigration Acts: aimed at
restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well
as prohibiting the immigration of East Asians and Asian Indians. (The Immigration Act of 1921: The Emergency
Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, restricted the number of immigrants admitted from
any country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the United States as of the
U.S. Census of 1910. Based on that formula, the number of new immigrants admitted fell from 805,228 in 1920 to
309,556 in 1921-1922.The Immigration Act of 1924 - limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted
from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the US in 1890, down
from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921.) The Lower East Side referred to the area alongside
the East River from about the Manhattan Bridge and Canal Street up to 14th Street, and roughly bounded on the west
by Broadway. A tenement is a substandard multi-family dwelling, usually old, occupied by the poor. Originally the
term tenement referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented accommodation. Urban poverty was blamed upon the
poor themselves, due to their foreign origin, or defects of character. Most immigrants were visible in the abstract, but
highly anonymous as individuals A fictionalized autobiography: Jews Without Money (1930) – by Michael Gold is a
fictionalized autobiography about growing up in the impoverished world of the Lower East Side, throughout the
1920s. Published in 1930 (Great Depression), it was an immediate success and it became a prototype for the American
Proletarian novel. The author, Michael Gold was born on the Lower East Side to Romanian Jewish immigrant parents.
An autobiographical novel: Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (1934) centres on the experiences of a young boy, David
Schearl, growing up in the Jewish immigrant ghetto of New York's Lower East Side in the early twentieth century.
Henry Roth born in Galicia, Austro-Hungarian who landed at Ellis Island and began his life in New York in 1908. He
lived on the Lower East Side, in the slums where his classic novel is set.
Edna St. Vincent Millay - Love is Not All - Shakespearean sonnet. This night - special, she is spending her time
together with her lover but she would still trade it for food. Sell your love for peace: write a poem about him and his
love and sell it. Food is more vital than the feeling of love. Last line: she would still suffer than give up love –
paradox. Best sonnet writer in American lit. First woman to win the Pulitzer-prize. Traditional sonnet, nothing
modernist
Robert Frost: born in 1874, wrote the poem about Kennedy? + read out; philosophical poems, the most well-known
American poet from the 20th century (Hungary: Weöres Sándor), born in San Francisco, moved to New England,
wealthy grandfather bought him an estate. worked as a farmer and primary school teacher. had hay fever, had to sell
the estate in 1911. Went to England. WWI: stayed in Europe till 1950, 4 times winner of the Pulitzer prize. Suffered
from depression. Melancholy in his poetry expressed in a colloquial language, disliked free verse (invented by Walt
Whitman) – ‘playing tennis without a háló’, used rural scenes: vidéki látkép. his poetry looked like 19th c. poetry. His
saying: a poem begins with delight and ends in wisdom - must sound good and have deeper meaning. Rural poet of N.
England, was a link btw romanticism and modernism. appreciated by urban critics - urban ppl with special way of
thinking, understood his philosophical meaning. (Traditional poetry was not popular, Allan Grinberg protested
against imperialism, fascism, communism, was a singer. Hobos=hippies. Allan visited Hungary, had a performance
with Hobo, his friend - Beat generations leading figure) His poems' main theme: choice, he stood bw romanticism and
modernism. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: 1923, new England setting, in a forest, speaker: older - promises
to keep - has responsibilities, probably a family, can’t do whatever he wants to. he is a traveller, he wishes to be
relaxed, farmhouse in the distance btw the woods in the village. sitting on a horse, looks around, 21st December -
darkest day, horse - dislikes the idea of stopping, behaves like a human being - he speaks instead of the horse 2.
3.stanza. Horse might represent society - reminds him of his responsibilities by criticizing the stopping. Sleep- death,
actual sleep. Foods: beauty of the world which most ppl miss. desire to die. The Road Not Taken: Setting: traveller, on
horse again, cannot be very young, hast to choose btw 2 opportunities in life. doesn’t know them. doesn’t know the
consequences. it’s a meditation on choices. and how we cannot enjoy all the opportunities that are offered to us in life.
champions non-conformity? living outside the social rules? it is not about non-conformity bc both roads are unknown.
cannot return to the same crossroad to follow the other way.
Alienation and literary experimentation: Ezra pound and t. s. Eliot - both born in the USA, became expatriates.
came to Europe. Ezra helped fertilize European poetry - helped poets like w. b. Yeats (Irish poet and politician) and
james Joyce, (- it is not possible to depict the world as such) June 16th - blomst day? alienation=isolation, cause:
industrial revolution, capitalism, huge cities, at the end of the 19th c. + pictures!!
Amy Lowell: Biography: American Imagist poet, was a woman of great accomplishment. She was born in 1874 in
Brookline, Massachusetts, to a prominent family of high-achievers. Her environment was literary and sophisticated,
and when she left private school at 17 to care for her elderly parents, she embarked on a program of self-education.
Her poetic career began in 1902 when she saw Eleonora Duse, a famous actress, perform on stage. Overcome with
Eleonora's beauty and talent, she wrote her first poem addressed to the actress. They met only a couple times and
never developed a relationship, but Eleonora inspired many poems from Amy and triggered her career. Ada Russell,
another actress, became the love of Amy's life. She met Ada in 1909 and they remained together until Amy's death in
1925.Amy Lowell wrote many, many poems about Ada. In the beginning, as with her previous poems about women,
she wrote in such a way that only those who knew the inspiration for a poem would recognize its lesbian content. But
as time went on, she censored her work less and less. Amy's dedication to the art of poetry was consuming. She
purchased her parent's estate upon their death and established it as a center of poetry, as well as a place to breed her
beloved (Old) English sheepdogs. She promoted American poetry, acting as a patron to a number of poets. Amy also
wrote many essays, translated the works of others, and wrote literary biographies. Her two-volume biography of Keats
was well-received in the United States, though it was rejected in England as presumptuous. She is best known for
bringing the Imagist movement to America. Her own work, full of lush* imagery but slim on excess verbiage, was
similar to that of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), an emerging Imagist poet in England. When Lowell saw the similarity, she
travelled to England to research the movement and ended up bringing back volumes of poetry to introduce Imagist
work to the United States. Ezra Pound, the "head" of the movement, was most offended by Amy's involvement. He
threatened to sue her, and finally he removed himself from the movement entirely. She argued that this was good; he
would ruin it anyway. Pound took to calling the movement "Amygisme," and engaged in plenty of scathing attacks
against her. (scathing = kegyetlen, gyilkos, maró) Critics were offended by her lesbianism, by the way she wore men's
shirts and smoked cigars, and even by her obesity. They argued that she must not have experienced true passion,
reflecting a common prejudice that women who are overweight cannot possibly be sexual beings. Her admirers
defended her, however, even after her death. One of the best rebuttals was written by Heywood Broun, in his obituary
tribute to Amy Lowell. He wrote, "She was upon the surface of things a Lowell, a New Englander and a spinster. But
inside everything was molten like the core of the earth... Given one more gram of emotion, Amy Lowell would have
burst into flame and been consumed to cinders. “Amy Lowell's book, What's O'Clock, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
in 1926, a year after her death. --- Born in a wealthy family, her father's family founded the industrial town of Lowell,
Massachusetts, and her mother's patriarchs founded Lawrence. Her brother Percival was a noted astronomer, and her
brother Lawrence was president of Harvard and her uncle, James Russel Lowell was a prominent 19th c. poet. Amy
Lowell was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and grew up on her family estate. Lowell's education consisted
primarily of tutors, access to her father's vast library, and travel in Europe. Her first writing was published when she
was eleven years old. While the diaries she kept as an adolescent suggest an early bisexuality, as she matured she
became less interested in men and looked for love and companionship with other women. Eleonora Duse - Italian,
famous actress - her first muse. Her first poem since her juvenalia was addressed to the actress and marked the
beginning of Lowell's career as a writer. She also helped others. She didn't use a vast number of vocabulary, she was
slim on excess verbage. Before she knew the term, "imagism," she had developed her appreciation of Japanese haiku
(short poem, must contain 17 syllables) and tanka. in 1913 she travelled to England in order to meet Ezra Pound, the
head of imagism. Pound found her overbearing and perhaps threatening. When the first volume came out (Some
Imagist Poets) imagism was still so revolutionary and controversial in the United States that Lowell was denounced by
the Poetry Society of America for championing imagist writers. Pound threatened to sue her for stealing his thunder.
Pound dropped the idea (a poetic school cannot be copyrighted) and disassociated himself from American imagism
(which he scoffingly called "Amygism"). (Wrote a two volume biography of John Keats.) Lowell was not only
energetic, she was also expansive, dramatic. Not having been blessed with physical beauty herself, she became a great
appreciator of it in others. The woman on whom she finally settled her affections, and who was her mate from 1912
until Lowell's death, was a beautiful actress, Ada Dwyer Russell. Many of Lowell's best poems are about Russell, as
she freely admitted. Lowell was the only one who won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously. Critics: Those who refused to
recognize that Lowell was a lesbian but saw her only as an unattractive, overweight woman and an "old maid"
( spinster- not married woman) were equally. In an other article sy complained that her poetry was bad because she
was "cut off from the prime biological experiences of life by her tragic physical predicament." Therefore her poems
are decorative rather than expressive of elemental passion = she couldn't write about love stuff bc due to her ugliness,
she could not have experienced it. (Nuance: even small things can affect us, great stuff; Obituary tribute: everything
that characterized their life, written after their death – nekrológia)
Venus Transiens by Amy Lowell: Tell me,/Was Venus more beautiful/Than you are,/When she topped/The crinkled
waves,/Drifting shoreward/On her plaited shell?/Was Botticelli's vision/Fairer than mine;/And were the painted
rosebuds/He tossed his lady,/Of better worth/Than the words I blow about you/To cover your too great loveliness/As
with a gauze/Of misted silver?/For me,/You stand poised/In the blue and buoyant air,/Cinctured by bright
winds,/Treading the sunlight./And the waves which precede you/Ripple and stir/The sands at my feet.- (Venus -
goddess of beauty and fertility, title: 'Venus passing over'. in the Hungarian version: the poet and Venus isn't
connected, doesn't show their relationship)
Opal by Amy Lowell: You are ice and fire,/The touch of you burns my hands like snow./You are cold and flame./You
are the crimson of amaryllis,/The silver of moon-touched magnolias./When I am with you,/My heart is a frozen
pond/Gleaming with agitated torches -- it showed the type of relationship Amy and Ada had. Is it euphoric or pained?
Does the "narrator rejoice or suffer? Is this a love poem or a grotesque? The final image of the narrator’s heart as a
"frozen pond/ Gleaming with agitated torches" is especially telling in this regard as it suggests both rapture and peril:
the frozen pond of the speaker’s heart gleams because it is beginning to melt from the heat of "agitated torches."
William Carlos Williams: 1883-1963 Biography: was born in Rutherford, New Jersey to an English father and
Puerto Rican mother of partial French descent. He was sent for two years to a school near Geneva and to the Lycée
Condorcet in Paris. Leipzig: advanced study of pediatrics. His primary occupation was as a family doctor. Early in his
career, he briefly became involved in the Imagist movement through his friendships with Ezra Pound and H.D. the
appearance of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land became a literary sensation and overshadowed Williams's very different
brand of poetic Modernism. although he respected the work of Eliot, Williams became openly critical of Eliot's highly
intellectual style with its frequent use of foreign languages and allusions to classical and European literature. Instead,
Williams preferred colloquial American English. In his modernist epic collage of place entitled Paterson (published
between 1946 and 1958), an account of the history, people, and essence of Paterson, New Jersey, Williams wrote his
own modern epic poem, focusing on "the local" on a wider scale than he had previously attempted. Williams wrote the
introduction to Ginsberg's important first book, Howl and Other Poems, in 1956. --- Born in Rutherford, New Jersey
(close to New York), educated at schools near Geneva and in Paris, New York, eventually became a medical doctor of
children (graduating from the Pennsylvanian Medical School). He came to Europe visiting Pound in London, through
him, he met leading writers and artists in Paris, became acquainted with imagism. Cubism also influenced him greatly.
Williams thought himself a quintessential American, His mother had been born in Puerto Rico of Basque and French-
Dutch-Jewish descent; his father, born in England and raised in the West Indies, retained British citizenship after
settling with his new wife in the U.S. -> celebrated cultural diversity. He was a modernist experimenting with form,
considering the visual aspect important. In large measure Williams's break with traditional forms and with aesthetic
attitudes toward mimesis and beauty was a response to contemporary movements in painting and photography.
Rejecting conventional metres and forms, he reproduced in boldly original and often difficult poems the commonplace
objects and scenes visual artists had portrayed in works that made new demands on their audience. After WW1, he did
not become an exile like Hemmingway, he came home. Paterson: 5 volumes of epic poetry, this modernist epic
centers on the doctor-poet Paterson's search for a redeeming language, exploring the estrangement of men and women
from their environment and from each other. Later he became radical, used radical forms; wanted to write sth similar
to Ulysses. Suffered from heart attacks and strokes.
The Great Figure: Scene. Manhattan. The upper right corner has an arc, implying a fragment of a large number five,
repeated three times in progressively smaller, complete number fives to create an impression of the fire engine moving
away from the viewer. The fire engine itself is reduced to an abstracted form composed of red rectangles, but there is a
hint of a ladder on the right side and an axle across the bottom. Above the truck are globular streetlamps flanked by
sidewalks and buildings in blacks and grays. Demuth conveyed his friendship with Williams by incorporating
fragments of his name: "Bill" across the top, and "CARLO" (the "O" cut off and the "S" missing entirely) in yellow
dots as in an illuminated theatre sign. Across the bottom the painter has placed his own initials "C.D." and also the
poet's "W.C.W." in the same size and colour.
The Red Wheelbarrow: 1. What two specific sight images does Williams incorporate into this poem? - Whatever
associations one finds in the images the poem presents, are dependent upon one's imagination. It is the imagination
that interprets and finds meaning. 2. What is the theme of the poem? - The theme would also be life, re-birth, second
chances, and the importance of the cycle of life upon everything. The theme is how simple, everyday things are
important. It is about how our happiness depends on appreciating dull things like chickens and wheelbarrows that are
out in the rain. In other words, we need to find the joy in our everyday life. --- 2 specific sight images: red
wheelbarrow, white chickens. Theme: changing of seasons, show how interpretation depends on the reader's
personality, psychological state and current mood, whether the poem is cheerful or sad. Setting: farm, countryside
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965): ”This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.” - "A világ így ér véget.
Nem bumm-mal, csak nyűszítéssel.” -- He invented modernism, belongs to both American and British culture. Born in
the Midwest 'Cats': Mephistopheles? - the evil in Faustus. What kind of a cat he is? - evil, clever, magical, cunning,
shy, Most imp 20th c poet - why did he write about cats then? -> wanted to amuse his friends, entertain ppl - watch the
musical!! Hair, Jesus Christ superstar - composer of the music is the same person as in cats. At first was pessimistic,
but he denied everything later after he became more religious and optimistic "I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a
classicist in literature and a royalist in politics": explains why he settled down in Britain, he believed he was a
classicist bc he often used German and Italian in his poems and included other poet's lines - but this was already
modernist. He also liked monarchy "Where there is no temple there shall be no homes": temple=religion, religious
belief -y if you are not religious, you aren't able to live in family. "Bad poets borrow, good poets steal": explains the
essence of his modernism that he included lines form other works but his work was still original bc he was a daring
innovator. Wanted to describe how the war destroyed even human lives not just houses and lands - the waste land
April: it reminds them of their own spiritual decay. It made him famous instantly. --- Eliot has been one of the most
daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language
itself, he has followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization
in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on
modern poetic diction has been immense. Eliot's poetry from Prufrock (1917) to the Four Quartets (1943) reflects the
development of a Christian writer: the early work, especially The Waste Land (1922), is essentially negative, the
expression of that horror from which the search for a higher world arises. 1888 September 26: Thomas Stearns Eliot
born in St. Louis, Missouri to Henry Ware and Charlotte Stearns Eliot. 1906-10 Undergraduate years at Harvard.
Reads Symons’s The Symbolist Movement in Literature and the symbolist poetry of Jules Laforgue. Studies with
George Santayana and Irving Babbitt. ¡1910-11 Having finished BA and MA degrees at Harvard, spends a year at the
Sorbonne in Paris studying philosophy. In the summer of 1911, finishes a version of The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock. 1911-14 Returns to Harvard to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit as a graduate student. Begins doctoral
thesis. ¡In 1914, Eliot paid a visit to Pound in London. Pound instantly deemed Eliot "worth watching" and was
crucial to Eliot's beginning career as a poet, as he is credited with promoting Eliot through social events and literary
gatherings. 1915: first marriage - Vivien Haigh-Wood. ¡1917 Prufrock and Other Observations published. (1st volume
with modernist features) Eliot takes a position at Lloyds Bank in the Colonial and Foreign Department. 1921 Ill and
exhausted, Eliot takes leave from Lloyds Bank. Recuperating at Margate and Lausanne, finishes the drafts of The
Waste Land, which he then shows to Pound. 1922 The Waste Land published. He founded and, during the seventeen
years of its publication (1922-1939), edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. - made him an
influential literary figure. 1925 Poems 1909-1925 published (with "The Hollow Men"). Eliot joins the publishing
house of Faber & Gwyer, leaves Lloyds Bank. 1927 Enters the Church of England and assumes British citizenship.
1930 Ash-Wednesday published. 1932 Selected Essays 1917-1932. 1935 Murder in the Cathedral performed. Murder
in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in
Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 by King Henry II. The play, dealing with an individual's opposition to authority, was
written at the time of rising fascism in Central Europe. 1947 Vivien Eliot dies. His 1st marriage was unhappy . 1948
Wins Nobel Prize for Literature. Notes Towards the Definition of Culture published - his speech after receiving the
Nobel Prize. 1949 The Cocktail Party performed. The play focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the
intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives. 1957: In January he married
Valerie Fletcher and attained a degree of contentedness that had eluded him all his life. - happiest period of his life .
1965: He died in London and, according to his own instructions, his ashes were interred in the church of St. Michael's
in East Coker. A commemorative plaque on the church wall bears his chosen epitaph--lines chosen from Four
Quartets: "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning." In 1930, he published a book of light verse, Old
Possum's Book of Practical Cats, "Old Possum" being Ezra Pound's nickname for him. This first edition had an
illustration of the author on the cover. After Eliot's death, it became the basis of the musical, Cats, by Andrew Lloyd
Webber. All of his writings are elegic in some form. Old Possum: his nickname given by Ezra
The Waste Land (1922): It is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot. It is perhaps the most famous
and most written-about long poem of the 20th century. Despite the alleged obscurity of the poem – its shifts between
satire and prophecy, it’s elegiac. (Elegiac: expressing sorrow often for something now past - an elegiac lament for
departed youth.) It is about the poet's experiences and ideas about WW1. April is the cruellest month: in winter
everything is protected, covered by snow
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917): The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, commonly known as Prufrock, is a
poem begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915. Described as a "drama of literary anguish," it
presents a stream of consciousness in the form of a dramatic monologue and marked the beginning of Eliot's career as
an influential poet. With its weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, and awareness of mortality, Prufrock has
become one of the most recognized voices in 20th-century literature. Prufrock: masterpiece of the modernist
movement: ¡His early poetry, including "Prufrock," deals with spiritually exhausted people who exist in the
impersonal modern city. ¡Prufrock is a representative character who cannot reconcile his thoughts and understanding
with his feelings and will. The poem displays several levels of irony, the most important of which grows out of the
vain, weak man's insights into his sterile life and his lack of will to change that life. ¡The poem is replete with images
of enervation and paralysis, such as the evening described as "etherized," immobile. To whom is Prufrock speaking?:
¡On the surface, ”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” relays the thoughts of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man
who wants to say something but is afraid to do so, and ultimately does not. The dispute, however, lies in to whom
Prufrock is speaking, whether he is actually going anywhere, what he wants to say, and to what the various images
refer. The intended audience is not evident. Some believe that Prufrock is talking to another person or directly to the
reader, while others believe Prufrock's monologue is internal. Is Prufrock going somewhere?: ¡Similarly, critics
dispute whether Prufrock is going somewhere during the course of the poem. In the first half of the poem, Prufrock
uses various outdoor images (the sky, streets, cheap restaurants and hotels, fog), and talks about how there will be
time for various things before "the taking of toast and tea", and "time to turn back and descend the stair." Is Prufrock
on his way to an afternoon tea?: ¡This has led many to believe that Prufrock is on his way to an afternoon tea, in which
he is preparing to ask this "overwhelming question”. = What is the meaning of life? Others, however, believe that
Prufrock is not physically going anywhere, but rather, is playing through it in his mind. What is Prufrock trying to
tell?: ¡Perhaps the most significant dispute lies over the "overwhelming question" that Prufrock is trying to ask. Many
believe that Prufrock is trying to tell a woman his romantic interest in her, pointing to the various images of women's
arms and clothing and the final few lines in which Prufrock laments that the mermaids will not sing to him. Others,
however, believe that Prufrock is trying to express some deeper philosophical insight or disillusionment with society,
but fears rejection, pointing to statements that express a disillusionment with society such as "I have measured out my
life with coffee spoons" (line 51). Prufrock’s dilemma: Many believe that the poem is a criticism of Edwardian society
and Prufrock's dilemma represents the inability to live a meaningful existence in the modern world. For many readers
in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to
represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment. 'J' is added to make the name more elegant while Prufrock is
an ugly, not aristocratic, ordinary name (A speaker in a dramatic monologue is also a character with a story to tell). 'I
have measured out my life with coffee spoons" = dissatisfied with his achievements, has an uninteresting life, repeats
the same insignificant actions every day. The line expresses the feelings of a modern man. 'To have squeezed the
universe...' - reference to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress. Lazarus: Lázár, Jesus resurrected him. Prufrock is
afraid of women <- women talking of Michelangelo = they are free, educated women who can talk about M, drive cars
and smoke cigarettes, have short hair, they are representatives of the new woman (flapper in America); P. feels
inferior to them and inferiority among the port-war man generation was a general phenomenon, they were afraid of
women bc they didn't know how to be strong anymore. Dante's Inferno: P. feels himself in hell therefore dares to say
what he wants. The Hollow Men: The two epigraphs to the poem, "Mistah Kurtz - he dead" and "A penny for the Old
Guy", are allusions to Joseph Conrad's character in Heart of Darkness and to Guy Fawkes, attempted arsonist of the
English house of Parliament, and his straw-man effigy that is burned each year in the United Kingdom on Guy Fawkes
Night. (arsonist = set a building to fire; effigy = a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture).
Some critics read the poem as told from five perspectives, each representing a phase of the passing of a soul into one
of death's kingdoms ("death's dream kingdom", "death's twilight kingdom", and "death's other kingdom"). Eliot
describes how we, the living, will be seen by "Those who have crossed|With direct eyes [...] not as lost|Violent souls,
but only|As the hollow men|The stuffed men." The poet depicts figures, "Gathered on this beach of the tumid
(swollen) river" — drawing considerable influence from Dante's third and fourth cantos of the Inferno which describes
Limbo, the first circle of Hell - showing man in his inability to cross into Hell itself or to even beg redemption, unable
to speak with God. Dancing "round the prickly pear," the figures worship false gods, recalling children and reflecting
Eliot's interpretation of Western culture after World War I. The final stanza may be the most quoted of all of Eliot's
poetry: ”This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang
but a whimper.” This last line alludes to, amongst some talk of war, the actual end of the Gunpowder Plot mentioned
at the beginning: not with its planned bang, but with Guy Fawkes's whimper, as he was caught, tortured and executed
on the gallows.
Hemingway: pacifist, most famous American writer from the 20th c., master of minimalism (colloquial language,
short sentences, dialogues and only a part of the plot is revealed). Received the Nobel Prize for his Old Man and the
Sea (survival of a symbolic man representing humanity). participated in WW1 as an ambulance driver at the Italian
front against Germans and Austro-Hungarians. He wrote about the Spanish Civil War and in WW2 in Cuba which was
a summer resort for USA citizens, he tried to catch German submarines
Harlem Renaissance (cca. 1918-mid 1930s): Aim: fellows tried to depict the "low-life" in their art, that is, the real
lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. Some common themes represented during the Harlem Renaissance
were the influence of the experience of slavery and emerging African-American folk traditions on black identity, the
effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas inherent in performing and writing for elite white audiences, and the
question of how to convey the experience of modern black life in the urban North. Harlem: a place in New England,
New York, Manhattan. African-American ppl lived there. Which branches are differentiated of the arts and letters of
Harlem? - Visual, Literary and Musical arts. What did I find the most interesting? - Black National Anthem. Belongs
to the rolling 20s. What led to the beginning of it? (1918) -
Langston Hughes (1902-1967): Leader of the Harlem Renaissance - Both of Hughes' paternal great-grandmothers
were African - American and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners of Kentucky. ” I was a
victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always
stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they
elected me as class poet.” Hughes and his fellows tried to depict the "low-life" in their art, that is, the real lives of
blacks in the lower social-economic strata. Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of
self-hate. ”Black pride”. Hughes’s influence: His African-American race consciousness and cultural nationalism
would influence many foreign black writers, including Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Léopold Sédar Senghor,
and Aimé Césaire and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of African descent from the Caribbean. Opponents
called him a racial chauvinist: With the gradual advancement toward racial integration, many black writers considered
his writings of black pride and its corresponding subject matter out of date. They considered him a racial chauvinist.
Hughes found some new writers, among them James Baldwin, lacking in such pride, over-intellectual in their work,
and occasionally vulgar. Influence in the 1960s: Hughes continued to have admirers among the larger younger
generation of black writers. He often helped writers by offering advice and introducing them to other influential
persons in the literature and publishing communities. This latter group, including Alice Walker, whom Hughes
discovered, looked upon Hughes as a hero and an example to be emulated (follow and surpass) within their own work.
Jim Crow Laws (1877-1965): •Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial
segregation. The laws—which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to
marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities.
Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death. One Way
Ticket by Langston Hughes: I pick up my life, And take it with me,/And I put it down in Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo,
Scranton,/Any place that is North and East, And not Dixie./I pick up my life And take it on the train,/To Los Angeles,
Bakersfield, Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake/Any place that is North and West, And not South./I am fed up With Jim Crow
laws,/People who are cruel And afraid, Who lynch and run,/Who are scared of me And me of them/I pick up my life
And take it away On a one-way ticket/Gone up North Gone out West Gone! (1949) - Dixie = a historical nickname of
the Southern United States; Jim Crow laws = state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United
States (the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms,
restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks). The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes: I’ve
known rivers:/I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins./My soul
has grown deep like the rivers./I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young./I built my hut near the Congo and
it lulled me to sleep./I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it./I heard the singing of the Mississippi
when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset./I’ve
known rivers:/Ancient, dusky rivers./My soul has grown deep like the rivers. -- Pyramids built by Jewish and black
ppl;
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
We Real Cool
THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool./We Left school./We Lurk late./We Strike straight./We Sing sin./We Thin gin./We Jazz June./We Die
soon. (1960) - we=black, young ppl. Pool players = biliárd játékosok; cool - menő, they didn't finish school->
teenagers, strike straight - express their feelings in an aggressive way if they feel it necessary. Sing sin - aggressive
behaviour=sinner Thin gin - drink gin, do it with water; jazz June - they have sex with anyone. -- a surprising ending -
why do they die soon? - are careless, young black boys leave school, there's no one to stop them, protect and save
them -> do what they want - aggressive situations – death
Toni Morrison (1931-2019): Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The novel takes place in Lorain,
Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up
following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her
mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes
she equates with ”whiteness”. The book's controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation have led to
numerous attempts to ban the novel from school’s libraries in the United States. When asked about her motivations for
writing The Bluest Eye in an interview, Morrison stated that she wanted to remind readers "how hurtful racism is" and
that people are "apologetic about the fact that their skin [is] so dark.
Sylvia Plath: Biography: born on 27 October, 1932 in Boston; father: Otto Emil Plath - professor of German and
Biology(bees); mother: Aurelia Schober Plath – high school teacher, model student – prizes, ‘A’ average; aged 8 –
first publishing; her father died of diabetes on 5 November, 1940; won scholarship to Smith College in 1950; won a
Guest Editorship at Mademoiselle in N.Y.C. in 1953; mental breakdown → suicide ( The Bell Jar - About the
problems of women, Her only novel - characters are based on real ppl); graduated summa cum laude at Smith in 1955;
won scholarship to Cambridge University, England; married Ted Hughes on 16 June, 1956; 1957 – returned to the
USA, working as a teacher at Smith; 1960 - back to England, 1st child: Frieda Rebecca was born, 1st collection The
Colossus was published; 1962 – 2nd child: Nicholas Farrar was born; discovery of Ted’s adultery → separation; 1963
– published The Bell Jar under pseudonym; on February 11, 1963 she committed suicide; Her suicide: mental illness,
her father's death, her husband’s adultery. She was an achiever who wanted to be the best at everything. Expectation
for women changed in the 1950s, she was one of the first ones to notice.
Daddy by Sylvia Plath: written 4 months before her death; the speaker: Sylvia; what is it about? – total rejection,
rage, abandonment, grief; metaphors and imagines; frequent use of the word ‘black’; male authority and control vs.
free female right to make choices 1. stanza: description of her father; black shoe – submissiveness, entrapment; black
↔ white; childish language: daddy, achoo 2. stanza: metaphorical murder, but no chance; father = God (fearful and
big); ‘grey toe’ – because of gangrene 3-4. stanza: ‘I used to pray to recover you’ – longing for her father as a child;
‘ach du’ – reference to his German origins BUT! : ‘Polish’ , ‘Polack’ – born in Poland 5-10. stanza: Nazi Germany =
horror of male domination; her father = Nazi, Hitler ; she = Jew; foot → military boot (7.) - references to WW II(8.) -
Tyrol, Vienna – references to her mother’s Austrian origin, - Gypsies=Jews; 11-16. stanza: autobiographical elements
(suicide, marriage); she evokes him and wants to overcome him finally, ‘A man in black with a Meinkampf look’ ,
‘vampire’ = Ted Hughes; ‘black telephone’ = refers to her husband’ adultery = rejection of society; ‘So daddy, I’m
finally through’ – reached freedom; child → ‘strong’ woman --- His actual early death inspired the poem. He is
described as sy speaking German, born in Poland. In the poem, she believes herself a Jew, his father a Nazi. Aryan
eye: used for ideal European soldiers. Black telephones…: no connection with him anymore. He is identified with a
vampire (usu located in Eastern Europe), they are dead ppl who come back from the grave to suck ppl's blood - she
killed the vampire in its grave. Last line: she feels free from the memory of his father
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997): Ambassador for tolerance: •Allen Ginsberg, the visionary poet and founding father of
the Beat generation inspired the American counterculture of the second half of the 20th century with ground-breaking
poems such as "Howl" and "Kaddish." Among the avant-garde he was considered a spiritual and sexually liberated
ambassador for tolerance and enlightenment. With an energetic and loving personality, Ginsberg used poetry for both
personal expression and in his fight for a more interesting and open society. Biography: •Allen Ginsberg was born in
Newark, New Jersey on June 3, 1926. As a boy he was a close witness to his mother’s mental illness, as she lived both
in and out of institutions. His father, Louis Ginsberg was a well-known traditional poet. •After graduating from high
school, Ginsberg attended Columbia University, where he planned to study law. There he became friends with Jack
Kerouac and William Burroughs. Together the three would change the face of American writing forever. With an
interest in the street life of the city, Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs found inspiration in jazz music and the culture
that surrounded it. They encouraged a break from traditional values, supporting drug-use as a means of enlightenment.
San Francisco Renaissance: •In 1954 in San Francisco, Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky, a young man of 21 with whom
he fell in love and who remained his life-long lover, and with whom he eventually shared his interest in Tibetan
Buddhism. Also, in San Francisco Ginsberg met members of the San Francisco Renaissance and other poets who
would later be associated with the Beat Generation in a broader sense. Ginsberg advertised an event of a poetry
reading as "Six Poets at the Six Gallery." One of the most important events in Beat mythos, known simply as "The Six
Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955. That night was the first public reading of "Howl", a poem that
brought world-wide fame to Ginsberg and many of the poets associated with him. A central figure in the rebelling
movement in the 1960s-1970s: Throughout the 1960s, Ginsberg experimented with a number of different drugs,
believing that under the influence he could create a new kind of poetry. For much of the youth of the day, Ginsberg’s
embrace of illegal drugs and unrestrained sexuality made him a central figure in the rebelling movements of the time.
More than any other American poet of the 20th century, Ginsberg used his popularity for social change. Coining the
phrase "flower power," Ginsberg encouraged protesters of the 1960s to embrace a non-violent rebellion. •By the
1980s, Ginsberg was the most famous living American poet. As a writer he continued to publish challenging and
personal verse and as a celebrity he maintained an international presence as a spokesperson for peace and tolerance—
working often as a teacher and lecturer. He died on April 5, 1997 at the age of seventy. At the time of his death,
"Howl" had been reprinted more than fifty times. --- Most influential poet in the 2nd part of the 20th c. (1st half: T. S.
Eliot). Freed international poetry from taboos
Howl: a manifesto for the sexual revolution; One of the primary first works of the Beats was Ginsberg’s long poem
"Howl." In an age plagued by intolerance, "Howl" (1956) was both a desperate plea for humanity and a song of
liberation from that intolerant society. Ginsberg’s use of a gritty vernacular and an improvisational rhythmical style
created a poetry which seemed haphazard and amateur to many of the traditional poets of the time. (gritty = brave). In
"Howl" and his other poems, however, one could hear a true voice of the time. For its frank embrace of such taboo
topics as homosexuality and drug use, "Howl" drew a great deal of criticism. Published by City Lights, the San
Francisco based publisher of many of the Beats, the book was the subject of an obscenity trial. The Beat Generation:
was a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jack Kerouac's On the
Road (1957), Allen Ginsberg's „Howl” (1956), and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) are often considered
their most important works. Author Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase Beat Generation sometime around 1948 to
describe his friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York.
The adjective beat had the connotations of "tired" or "down and out," but Kerouac added the paradoxical connotations
of upbeat, beatific, and the musical association of being "on the beat." Calling this relatively small group of struggling
writers, students and drug addicts a "generation" was to make the claim; that they were representative and important—
the beginnings of a new trend, analogous to the influential Lost Generation. Defined broadly, a group of writers who
reached prominence in the late 1950s, early 1960s, who shared many of the same themes, ideas, intentions, etc. (for
example, dedication to spontaneity, open-form composition, subjectivity, and so on), would also be included. E. g.:
Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan. Perhaps even greater than
their influence on literature is the influence the Beats had on Rock and Roll, if one considers the subsequent influence
of Beat fans like the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. The image of the rebellious rock star is in many ways
analogous to the Beat image of, say, Dean Moriarty in On the Road, a book that had a direct influence on many rock
musicians. Kaddish and Other Poems, 1961: •City Lights came out with Ginsberg’s second book in 1961. Kaddish,
And Other Poems, often considered Ginsberg’s greatest work, dealt again with a deep despair and addressed
Ginsberg’s closeness with his mother while she was hospitalized and fighting insanity. The term "Kaddish" is often
used to refer specifically to "The Mourners' Kaddish," said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer
services as well as at funerals and memorials. When mention is made of "saying Kaddish", this unambiguously
denotes the rituals of mourning.
A Supermarket in California, 1955: What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon./In my hungry fatigue, and
shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!/What peaches and what
penumbras!/Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the
tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? /I saw you, Walt Whitman,
childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys./I heard you
asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?/I wandered in and out
of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,and followed in my imagination by the store detective./We strode down the
open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing
the cashier./Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)/Will we walk all night
through solitary streets?/The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely./Will we stroll
dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?/Ah, dear father,
graybeard, lonely old courage- teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got
out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? --- There is an air of
superiority to A Supermarket in California, and with its many allusions, Ginsberg assumes his readers will have a
certain prior knowledge of subjects such as poetry, world history, and mythology. Ginsberg separates his poem into
three stanzas, and his lines are unrhymed and written in free verse, and structure does not seem of great importance to
Ginsberg; his stanzas and lines are of varying lengths. As stated earlier, Ginsberg utilizes apostrophe, which is the
device used when a poet speaks directly to a person who is not actually there. In this case, Ginsberg is speaking to
Walt Whitman, who by the time Ginsberg wrote “A Supermarket in California”, had been dead for many years. Many
consider Whitman to be one of Ginsberg’s inspirations and muses, so it is no surprise that the poet conjures up one of
his idols. He writes, “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the streets under the
trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.” In the next line, the speaker continues to talk to
Whitman, telling him that in his “hungry fatigue,” he entered a supermarket to shop not for food, but for images. In
the next lines, it does seem that the speaker is, in fact, shopping for the sights that he sees, not for food. He calls the
supermarket a “neon fruit supermarket,” which inspires images of bright lights and catchy products in his reader. He
says he entered the store “dreaming of your enumerations!” An enumeration is a list of sorts, and Whitman is known
for utilizing lists in his poetry. Ginsberg probably also intended to use the word since most people create shopping
lists before going grocery shopping. Instead of consulting a food list, he is instead checking the works of his favourite
poet. The second half of the first stanza details images of the objects and people that surround the speaker in the
supermarket. There is a flurry of activity occurring here, which is a sharp contrast to the beginning of the poem when
the speaker seems almost lonely as he walks outside thinking of Whitman and looking up at the full moon. Here, there
are peaches and penumbras, which are dark spots in astronomy, but could be the dark spots the speaker sees on the
fruit. There are also families shopping together—the husbands are in the aisles while the wives are in the avocados
and the babies are in the tomatoes. The speaker also speaks to another dead poet, Garcia Lorca, who is a Spanish poet
who was executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. It is curious that Ginsberg uses so many exclamation
points here, an uncommon punctuation mark in poetry. Perhaps he utilizes it in order to convey the hustle and bustle
that is occurring inside the grocery store. In the second stanza, the speaker claims to have seen Whitman, himself,
“poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.” It is no secret that Whitman was
homosexual, and Ginsberg makes a note of this in the line. On a side note, both Ginsberg and Garcia Lorca were also
gay, which is perhaps why Ginsberg makes mention of the other poets in this work. In the second half of the second
stanza, the speaker admits to following Whitman around the store. The dead poet can be heard asking all sorts of
questions, the last being “Are you my Angel?” It is almost as though Whitman is looking for salvation of sorts,
someone to save him from this particular miserable existence. The speaker and his muse continue around the store,
tasting and handling all sorts of food, yet never coming across a single cashier. The speaker also admits to being
“followed in my imagination by the store detective.” The third and final stanza has an almost forlorn feeling to it: the
speaker knows it is getting late and the store will be closing soon. He implores Whitman to tell him where they will be
going next. He admits that he feels “absurd” that he’s been touching the poet’s book and dreaming of their odyssey in
the grocery store. Even though he feels this way, he does not want the journey to end. He asks if they will be walking
the streets together, alone and lonely as the rest of the city closes up and goes to sleep. It is here that the speaker is
setting up a division between himself and other Americans. He writes, “Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of
love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?” It seems as though the speaker is dreaming of
when America was different from what it currently is: it was simpler and less obsessed with possessions. The speaker
and Whitman are of that other America, not the current one, and their isolation and differentness is palpable in this
final stanza. He then asks Whitman, to whom he refers as a “lonely old courage-teacher” what America was like
before “Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the
black waters of Lethe?” Ginsberg references two different myths in these lines. Charon is the ferryman who leads the
dead across the river Styx and into Hades, the underworld. The Lethe, however, is a different, more sinister river.
Those who drink the water from this river will forget everything. Historical Background: As stated previously,
Ginsberg was a homosexual and spent the majority of his life with his partner, Peter Orlovsky. Ginsberg conjures up
two dead homosexual poets in his work; perhaps he does this because he feels the three are kindred spirits, and in this
poem, Ginsberg seems to be feeling particularly lonely and isolated from the rest of society. “A Supermarket in
California” can be seen as part of the counter-culture of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg clearly draws a line between
him and the people living in suburban America with their “blue automobiles.”