34. Экзистенциализм и тема молодежи в романах Дж. Сэлинджера «Над пропастью во ржи» и в романе х. Ли «Убить пересмешника».

Surrealism expresses the unconscious through vivid dreamlike imagery, and much poetry by women and ethnic minorities. Though superficially distinct, surrealists, feminists, and minorities appear to share a sense of alienation from white, male, mainstream literature. In 1960s surrealism and existentialism become domesticated in America under the stress of the Vietnam conflict.

Existentialism emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

J.D. Salinger (1919- ) 


A harbinger of things to come in the 1960s, J.D. Salinger has portrayed attempts to drop out of society. Born in New York City, he achieved huge literary success with the publication of his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), centered on a sensitive 16-year-old, Holden Caulfield, who flees his elite boarding school for the outside world of adulthood, only to become disillusioned by its materialism and phoniness. 
When asked what he would like to be, Caulfield answers "the catcher in the rye," misquoting a poem by Robert Burns. In his vision, he is a modern version of a white knight, the sole preserver of innocence. He imagines a big field of rye so tall that a group of young children cannot see where they are running as they play their games. He is the only big person there. "I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff." The fall over the cliff is equated with the loss of childhood and (especially sexual) innocence -- a persistent theme of the era. Other works by this reclusive, spare writer include Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters (1963), a collection of stories from The New Yorker. Since the appearance of one story in 1965, Salinger -- who lives in New Hampshire -- has been absent from the American literary scene.

35. Литература битников: Дж.Керруак, т.Вульф. Новый журнализм: х.Томпсон.

the Beat Movement­­­the impact of WWII, the cold war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the assassination of Kennedy and of Martin Luther King ; the idea of life as a big joke or an absurdity; the more disintegrating and fragmentary world; more estranged and despondent people; Allen Ginsberg, the “Howl”, the manifesto of the Beat Movement.

Beat Poets

The "Beat" poets emerged in the 1950s. Most of the important Beats (beatniks) migrated to San Francisco from the East Coast, gaining their initial national recognition in California. Major Beat writers have included Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. Beat poetry was the most anti-establishment form of literature in the United States, but beneath its shocking words lies a love of country. The poetry is a cry of pain and rage at what the poets see as the loss of America's innocence and the tragic waste of its human and material resources.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) 


The son of an impoverished French-Canadian family, Jack Kerouac also questioned the values of middle-class life. He met members of the "Beat" literary underground as an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York City. His fiction was much influenced by the loosely autobiographical work of southern novelist Thomas Wolfe. 
Kerouac's best-known novel, On the Road (1957), describes "beatniks" wandering through America seeking an idealistic dream of communal life and beauty. The Dharma Bums (1958) also focuses on peripatetic counterculture intellectuals and their infatuation with Zen Buddhism. Kerouac also penned a book of poetry, Mexico City Blues (1959), and volumes about his life with such beatniks as experimental novelist William Burroughs and poet Allen Ginsberg.

Большое влияние на американскую литературу 50 -70-х гг. годов оказала философия экзистенциализма. Проблема отчуждения человека легла в основу идеологии и эстетики поколения так называемых «битников». В 50-х гг. в Сан-Франциско образовалась группа молодой интеллигенции, которая назвала себя «разбитым поколением» - битниками. Битники восприняли близко к сердцу такие явления, как послевоенная депрессия, «холодная война», угроза атомной катастрофы. Битники фиксировали состояние отчужденности человеческой личности от современного им общества, и это, естественно, выливалось в форму протеста. Представители этого молодежного движения давали почувствовать, что их современники-американцы живут на развалинах цивилизации. Бунт против истеблишмента стал для них своеобразной формой межличностного общения, и это роднило их идеологию с экзистенциализмом Камю и Сартра. Знаковой фигурой среди писателей-битников стал Джек Керуак. Манифестом писателей-битников стал его роман «На дороге» (1950).

“New journalism”: Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer - Journalism that is characterized by the reporter's subjective interpretations and often features fictional dramatized elements to emphasize personal involvement.