The above is a reading list for students attending Allen Ginsberg's class for aspiring poets in 1977 at the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics."
The list is comprised of works from the Western literary tradition that, according to Ginsberg, influenced the Beat literary style.
I took one look at the list and thought, "Oh my God, this list has the entire Western canon!" The OMG expression came off a previously held assumption that the Beats were writing against the canon.
Didn't the Beat generation seek to subvert cultural orthodoxies? And is the Western literary canon a part of that orthodoxy?
Ginsberg's reading list seems to both say a "yes" and a "no" to this question.
"Yes," the Beats wanted to poke holes in institutionalized modes of thinking, and "no" the Western literary canon was not really a part of that mode. Come to think of it, the best literary traditions are always subversive in obvious and implicit ways. By "subversive," I mean going against conventional thinking.
Shakespeare's sonnets, for instance went against the conventions of literary or romantic love of his time, because a good chunk of the sonnets, especially those dedicated to the "dark lady", celebrate the sex appeal of a woman who is dark-skinned and older (a Renaissance older woman would be in her 30s is my guess); her sex-appeal lies in her unconventional looks and her cerebral qualities as well.
Now that's radical.
Next time, when I teach the Beat poets, I'll make sure that I drive home this point to my students--everything is influenced by something preceding it and that nothing, even the newest of all, doesn't combust spontaneously into being.
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