Influences on Western culture

A section devoted to the beat generation at a bookstore in Stockholm, Sweden.

While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had a pervasive influence on Western culture more broadly.

In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation:

• Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.

• Liberation of the world from censorship.

• Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.

• The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.

• The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the notion of a "Fresh Planet."

• Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.

• Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a "second religiousness" developing within an advanced civilization.

• Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.

• Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road: "The Earth is an Indian thing."

Look up the rest in Wikipedia

Mass literature, pop literature

1960s

Decade of social changes and social protests.

• War in Vietnam (part of 60s)

• Youth movement (students’ protest against the policy of the government)

• Ethnic minorities problem

• Black Revolution

This time is a turning point in many things. After 60s there is no more canon in American literature.

1.Main stream literature (= high literature)

2.Mass literature

3.Ethnic literature

4.Gender (feminine) literature

5.Post modern literature

Mass literature:

The western (as an element of nostalgia about XIX century)

Detective story (mystery)

Thriller

Soap-opera

All this is Formula Literature or Formula Fiction

In popular culture, formula fiction is literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable. It is similar to genre fiction, which identifies a number of specific settings that are frequently reused. The label of formula fiction is used in literary criticism as a mild pejorative to imply lack of originality.

Formula fiction is similar to genre fiction. The label of genre fiction is typically assigned because of the reuse of settings, content, layout, and/or style. The label of formula fiction is assigned because of the reuse of plot, plot devices and stock characters.

Genres like high fantasy, Westerns and science fiction space opera often have specific settings, such as a pseudo-Medieval European setting, the Old West, or outer space. Approaching a given genre, certain assumed background information covers the nature and purpose of possible predictable elements of the story, such as the appearance of dragons and wizards in high fantasy, warp drives in science fiction, or shootouts at high noon in Westerns. These set-ups are taken for granted by the genre conventions, and need not be explained for the reader anew... though it should also be noted that these elements can easily be treated subversively as well, playing with some of the preconceptions inherent in formula fiction.

The formula is defined specifically by predictable narrative structure. Formulaic tales incorporate plots that have been reused so often as to be easily recognizable. Perhaps the most clearly formulaic plots characterize the romantic comedy genre; in a book or film labeled as such, viewers already know its most basic central plot, including to some extent the ending. This does not always prove to be detrimental to a given work's reception, however, as the popularity of the aforementioned genre demonstrates.

Formula fiction should not be confused with pastiche (the mimicking of another work or author's style), though the latter by its nature may include elements of the former; the same holds true of some parody and satirical works as well, which may well include formulaic elements such as common stereotypes or caricatures, or which may use formulaic elements in order to mock them or point out their supposedly cliché or unrealistic nature. Indeed, between parody, satire and such subgenres as romantic comedy, comedy as a whole often relies on either formulaic elements, or the mocking of such elements.

Then Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism challenged the philosophy of art and literature since about the 1960s.

Characteristics of Post-Modernism:

• reaction against an ordered view of the world

• eclectic writing style, often using parody

• development of such concepts as the absurd, the anti-hero, antinovel, magic realism

• proliferation of critical theories such as deconstructionism

V. Nabokov

Umberto Eco

Joseph Heller

John Barth

Age of Uncertainty

Idea that we see sth, but we can’t put it into words, because everything is uncertain.