Examining a peculiarity in the legacy of the Beat Generation,
this book considers the fact that a body of literature centered
around the work of authors with misogynist tendencies such as
William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac has been a
profound influence on later generations of female writers and
artists who work through the prism of feminism. The study aims to
show that the idea that the Beat Generation was a "boy gang" is a
misconception forged by Ginsberg and others in the group, who not
only marginalized female authors in their midst but also construed
women as symbols of stagnation and domesticity. As early as the
1960s, female Beat writers attempted to express themselves not
through the narratives of Beat sexual and social rebellions, but
through feminist discourses which sought to free the woman from the
patriarchal ideal of either mother or waiting maiden. MacKay argues
that Beat women of later generations expand writing techniques they
self-consciously inherit from male Beat writers, such as long
breath lines in poetry and the cut-up technique. While Ginsberg and
Burroughs utilize these to show the potentiality of the free mind,
which has no social, sexual, or geographical limits, female authors
apply them to interrogate gender as a fixed category. This study
demonstrates that female authors who pay homage to male Beat
writers often rearticulate and critique masculinist discourse while
maintaining the spirit of defiance and resistance.
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