Spirituality and Religious Traditions in Beat Literature

This essay explicates a Beat fascination with esoteric religious traditions, including astrology, alchemy, and Gnosticism, illuminating heterodoxies characterizing countercultural minorities from antiquity to the present and shaping the Beat imagination. Calonne presents detailed readings of the poetry of Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, and Michael McClure

PETER DICKINSON (b. 1934)Extravaganzas (1963–1969)

This chapter examines Peter Dickinson’s Extravaganzas. This brief cycle is set to ironically humorous, occasionally disturbing texts by the American beat poet Gregory Corso. Highly entertaining and varied, the songs show how well this composer understands the voice. Wit and flexibility are shown throughout in idiomatic writing for both performers. Moods change quickly and every detail counts in music of such extreme concentration. The singer is kept constantly occupied with satisfying tasks and musical pleasures, closely linked to the sardonic twists and flashes of dry humour in the texts. The vocal part is wide-ranging and requires precise intonation. Overall, the chapter deems Extravaganzas a most agreeable antidote to heavier fare, and a welcome showpiece for stylish performers with a disciplined technique.

Ethnos and the Beat Poets

Rising from the streets of New York with his songs like Caruso or Sinatra, but in words. “Sweet Milanese hills” brood in his Renaissance soul, evening is coming on the hills. Amazing and beautiful Gregory Corso, the one and only Gregory the Herald.

On the Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest

For the beat generation of the 1940s and 1950s, dissertation time is here. Magazine and newspaper critics have gotten in their jabs. Now scholars are starting to analyze the literature and legacy of the beat writers. In the last few years biographers have lined up to interpret the lives of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, and publishers have rushed into print a host of beat journals, letters, memoirs, and anthologies. The most recent Dictionary of Literary Biography devotes two large volumes to sixty-seven beat writers, including Neal Cassady, Herbert Huncke, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Peter Orlovsky, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen.