Key Texts in Post-War American Literature
Beat Generation
- Jack Kerouac – On the Road
- Allen Ginsberg – Howl
New Journalism
- Tom Wolfe – The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Surfiction
- Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49
Postmodern Fiction
- Paul Auster – City of Glass
Postmodern Poetry
- Frank O’Hara – Lunch Poems (New York School)
- Barrett Watten – Plasma (Language Poetry)
- Lyn Hejinian–My Life– (Language Poetry)
African American Literature
- LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)– Black Art
- Toni Cade Bambara – The Lesson
- Claudia Rankine – Citizen: An American Lyric
Chicano Literature
- Sandra Cisneros – The House on Mango Street
Queer Literature
- Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time (Ecofeminism)
- David Wojnarowicz – In the Shadow of the American Dream
Literature about a Digitized Environment (AI Literature)
- Ted Chiang – The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Analysis of Key Literary Works
Jack Kerouac – On the Road – Beat Generation
Characters: Sal Paradise (author), Dean Moriarty (madness, intelligence, admiration), Carlo Marx. Setting: 1950s America. Themes: Freedom, friendship, sex, drugs, individualism, free writing, mysticism. Topic: Literature based on personal experience: travel, change, movement. Narrator: First-person (autobiographical), spontaneity, ephemerality, authenticity (descriptions). Style: Fluent prose. Dichotomy: West (fun, joy, sex) vs. East (intellectualism, boredom). Influence: Bebop Jazz.
Allen Ginsberg – Howl – Beat Generation
Focus: Underrepresented outcasts (the best minds of his generation). Symbolism: Moloch, a biblical idol, represents industrial civilization preying on outcasts (capitalism, government, police). Setting: Rockland, a mental institution where Ginsberg met Carl Solomon. Style: Repetitions, long lines, lack of punctuation, melodic and musical. Themes: Frankness (sincerity), musicality (jazz influence), popular culture, religion, spirituality, transcendentalism, political undertones.
Tom Wolfe – The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – New Journalism
Characters: Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Further (the bus), LSD, Gas Station, Cool Breeze. Stylistic Devices: Status-life symbols (bladder totem), shifting third-person point of view (authenticity), scene-by-scene construction, extensive dialogue. Style: Non-linear, oral, sound rhetoric. Setting: North Beach neighborhood (“colonized”). Perspective: “Mysto” (the way they perceive reality), anti-establishment, anti-capitalism, anti-corporate America.
Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49 – Surfiction
Characters: Oedipa Maas, Pierce Inverarity, Wendell “Mucho” Maas, Dr. Hilarius. Plot: A conspiracy tale involving Thurn und Taxis and Trystero, Metzger, San Narciso. Style: Frequent commas, lack of full stops, single-sentence paragraphs. Techniques: Imitation and pastiche (detective novels, Volkswagens, Beatles haircuts). Humor: Black humor (e.g., IBM 7094). Genre Mixing: Combines high and low culture (Tupperware party with classical music). Theme: Absurdity of resolving a non-existent conspiracy.
Paul Auster – City of Glass – Postmodern Fiction
Characters: Daniel Quinn, intertextuality with Don Quixote, fragmented identity (Paul Auster the writer, Paul Auster the detective). Technique: Metaliterature – allusions to the Bible, Poe, Thomas Moore, and shifts in narrator perspective. Theme: Identity – split personality (third-person narrator) D.Q./W.W./M.W. = Paul Auster (the narrator appears external but is later revealed to be internal). Explores the relationship between reality and language. Emphasizes identity and the multiplicity of realities.
Frank O’Hara – Lunch Poems – Postmodern Poetry (New York School)
“Song”: Key element: dirt. Uses lowercase letters and semicolons. “The Day Lady Died”: Diaristic, routine activities, precise time, people, and place references. First-person narrator. Allusions to popular culture: Strega, Bonnard, Richmond. Use of enjambment. “A Step Away From Them”: Bullfight, Juliet’s corner. Highly descriptive of the environment, diaristic, references to time, people (blonde, Black, Puerto Rican), food, drinks, specific places, and personal names. Colloquial style, unpoetic words. Themes: Carpe diem, city life. Popular culture: commercial theaters, musicals, Times Square. Synesthesia: “hum-colored”.
Barrett Watten – Plasma – Postmodern Poetry (Language Poetry)
Structure: Single lines and couplets. A series of statements/descriptions lacking coherence or internal cohesion (stream of consciousness technique). Technique: Irony (“thank you”). Focus on language. Full of gaps and jumps. Glimpses of sense. Meta-commentary (“the road turns into…”). Metaliterary elements (“the novel…my work is done”).
Lyn Hejinian-My Life– Language Poetry
Focus: Memories of childhood. A gathering of voices on paper. Metaliterary reference (“I refer to relevance…”). Metalinguistic commentary: Long timelines, ideas, objects, people.
LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) – Black Art – African American Literature
Highly political poem advocating for the cleansing of the world from negative influences. Focus: Goals of Black Art. Justification of actions due to racism and discrimination. Slogan: “Black is beautiful.” *Note: The poem contains anti-Semitic references, reflecting the author’s views at the time. “Wops” is used as a derogatory term for Italians, similar to “niggas” for Black people.
Toni Cade Bambara – The Lesson – African American Literature
Characters: The blind man (Bovanne), the ball, the kitchen conversation with her children (Task, Joe Lee, and Elo). Themes: Women’s sexual liberation, reclaiming freedom through drinking, dancing, dressing freely, and sexual expression. Black dialect. Story Collection: Miss Moore, a Black character, is depicted with clothes and church attendance. She demonstrates superiority, acts educated, and behaves like a white person, creating a sense of distance from the Black community.
Claudia Rankine – Citizen: An American Lyric – African American Literature
Theme: Microaggressions. Tone: Ironic and angry, reflecting pain and vulnerability. Examples of racism and microaggressions. Assertion: Public spaces should be inclusive. Perspective: Second-person narration, creating immediacy and involving the reader in the racist situations.
Sandra Cisneros – The House on Mango Street – Chicano Literature
Esperanza’s life in the neighborhood: short stories, narrative of her observations and descriptions of her neighbors’ behavior. Format: Short chapters. Themes: Communal life, Chicano culture. Characters: Esperanza, Lucy, Rachel, Nenny (Esperanza’s little sister), and Sally. Gloria Anzaldúa – *Borderland/La Frontera* – Feminist Literature. Experimental, translingual writing with references to Mexico and the US-Mexican border. Deals with conquests, Chicano themes, Aztec culture, feminist (lesbian) liberation, and a strong sense of self.
Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time – Queer Literature (Ecofeminism)
Context: Second-wave feminism, debates on family. Absence of fathers. Gender neutrality in clothing, rejecting traditional femininity. Lack of possessiveness in the utopian setting. Connie’s alarm at Lucienne’s lesbianism (“not good for growing her relationship with Diana”). Dystopia based on sex contrasts (oppressive, violent). Pollution linked to social class, with the upper class unaffected. Connie: A Chicana woman.
David Wojnarowicz – In the Shadow of the American Dream – Queer Literature
Style: Diaristic, descriptive of thoughts, feelings, environment, and activities. Highlights various people (men) and their physical features (abdomen, arms, flesh, ribs), without personal names. Fragmented text. Critique of American civilization and sexuality. Violence: Sense of threat and loss of consciousness. Children episode: Dream reflecting fear. Use of an interior voice.
Ted Chiang – The Lifecycle of Software Objects – Literature about a Digitized Environment (AI Literature)
Setting: Post-apocalyptic/futuristic, high-tech, implants, criminal activities, mafias, squids (the Yakuza), hitmen, junkies (the dolphin), Lo-Tek. Characters: Johnny, Ralfi, Lewis (beefboy), Molly Millions.