Beat Generation
The Beat Generation began immediately after World War II. Many Beat poets emerged from New York in the early 1950s and in San Francisco in the mid 1950s. The Beat Generation questioned and did not conform to mainstream America at the time just like the Lost Generation did after World War I. They questioned politics, culture, and also became interested in changing consciousness and defying conventional writing. Meditation and hallucinogenic drugs were used to achieve much higher consciousness. Many famous poets became part of Asian religions such as Buddhism. Jack Kerouac defined significance of "beat" as "being beaten" or made tired by society. The movement also believed in the individual. A "wild, self believing" individual would consciously break away from middle-class conformity, making a non-violent protest against the United States government. Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and Kerouac's "On The Road" helped to make publishing freer in the US due to trials held because of their vulgarity.
"The Whole Mess...Almost" by Gregory Corso
Poem Analysis
Corso in his poem runs to his room throwing things most important to him in life. It seems as if he does this due to the fact that he now realizes that he had been living a senseless life before and is now, possibly through the practice of Buddhism, is letting materialistic things and other things that cause desires out of his head to possibly start anew. He may now see the things that society makes seem a necessity or a norm as something very bland and artificial. He may be wanting to be an anti-conformist for which the Beat movement was known for. He through out things such as Truth, God, Love, Faith, Hope, Charity, Beauty, Money Death, and Humor out the window. He rejected the truth, believing in God, and thinking of love as ever being true. All of these things were temptations to him that seemed artificial after something occurred in his life. At the end of the poem he throws of humor "Out the window with the window" probably to add humor by having the reader think so that he won't have to see them out the window. |
Literary Devices
Personification- Corso personifies every single thing he thought as lacking authenticity. One of the more humorous parts of the poem is, "Then Love, cooing bribes: “You’ll never know impotency! All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours! I pushed her fat ass out and screamed: “You always end up a bummer!” Love can bribe her but Corso even goes as far as saying that he pushed her rear out the door. He even gave love a gender. Hyperbole-"I ran up six flights of stair to my small furnished room opened the window and began throwing out those things most important in life." This is an exaggeration of the truth because the things he threw out were intangible. Oxymoron- "Beauty kills" is an oxymoron because the two words at first seem to be unrelatable because beauty is something perceived as good while "kills" is perceived as something horrific. The phrase does have a logical meaning. A feminine figure such as Siren lures with her beauty also creates death and destruction |