ENGLISH LITERATURE & CULTURE
‘I’ IS ANOTHER:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
ACROSS GENRES
Camelia Elias
between sociology and
autobiography
• the collective self/the collective in the self
•
•
•
(Malcolm X)
sociology: descriptions of interactions
autobiography: self-definition of actions
autobiographical performance
 a move from autobiography as a literary event
to autobiography as a social injunction
 as a social injunction autobiography follows a
heuristic model (it teaches, or instructs, it
provides a role model)
social/private aims
•
“in the act of providing meaning and
unity to a private life, the
autobiographer seeks to impart
meaning and unity to the social
order” (Irving Horowitz, 174)
transcendence and immortality
•
•
the autobiographer’s need beyond moral injunction
and role emulation:
 to transcend
 to achieving immortality
 to reach beyond the individual  state, nature,
society
 to create a ‘generalized other’
the task of autobiography:
 to point to what is common to us all
 to demonstrate that each one of the selves is
different than the other
 to show that we cannot fulfill ourselves unless we are
members of a group in whom there’s a community of
attitudes
autobiographical authorizations
• autobiography serves to fill the void for
•
generalized others as well as for
particularized selves (Horowitz)
strategic moves:
 from autobiography as moral instruction  to
personal transcendence  to social ideology 
divine/historical immortality
• autobiography as biography:
 objectivity
 anonymity
autobiography vs. social discourse
• autobiography is not a fit subject for social
•
•
•
examination
self-examination is akin to self-celebration
some performers are outstanding because
they know how to perform, not because
they are honest
if the autobiography is good, it has to
involve unusual people (who are hard to
emulate)
autobiography as an act of writing
•
‘painful’ endeavor
 from combining self-reflection with the
•
•
constraints of genre
celebratory endeavor
the ‘other’ is as important as the ‘self’
autobiography under the
generational sign – The Beats
• The Beats were almost uniformly
opposed to being categorized.
• Most of them refused to be associated
with the Beat Generation at one point
or another.
• Despite this resistance to being “put
in a box”, there are common themes
and subject matter in their writing.
themes
•
•
•
•
•
•
spontaneity, to the point of chaos
rejection of “square” or conservative/conventional
society
non-conformity in general, both in content and style
open, uncensored emotion
gritty subject material, often up close and personal,
viewed as shocking and/or offensive by square
society.
the Beats were hugely culturally influential and
incredibly innovative and courageous in their literary
style and content.
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
• was born Jean-Louis Kerouac.
• His parents were French Canadian, and
consequently young Jack learned English as
second language.
• only attended college briefly, and also
enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was, however,
discharged as a schizoid personality
• attended Columbia University in NYC
On the Road
•
After being discharged from
the Navy, Jack roamed the
United States and Mexico, by
car and bus when possible,
but also by hitchhiking and as
an illegal passenger on trains.
•
It was these experiences, as
well as a friendship with Neal
Cassady that would provide
the material for his most
famous novel, On The Road.
•
Though he completed On The
Road in two drug and coffee
fueled weeks in 1948, it
would not be published until
1957.
Kerouac’s style
•
•
•
free-flowing stream of consciousness
“spontaneous prose”.
based around the theory of ‘first
thought, best thought’
 because of this philosophy, Kerouac
rarely edited his work
Kerouac’s writing “commandments”
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild
typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own
house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own
form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
On the Road
•
•
•
•
•
written on scroll
form follows content
the content is the condition for the
possibility of form
agenda for analysis
Basic Hip – Kerouac times
narration/stylistics
Narration
• 1st person point of
view (limited)
• Involved narrator
• Narrative irony?
• Reliability?
• Epiphanies?
Stylistics/Diction
• Repetitions/riffs/
"mantras”
• Enumeration
• Compounds
• Unusual predicates
thematics/themes
Thematics
• 'Blow’
• 'Hip’
• 'IT’
• 'Dig’
• 'Go'/'Gone’
• 'Knowing time’
• 'Beat'/'beaten'/Beatific
• Oysters/pearls
• Food/eating
• Falling apart/collapsing
Themes
• Memory/experience
/writing
• Talk/language/lingo
• Madness/insight/visions
• Music/God
• Questing/finding
• Sex & love/Male bonding
• Weltschmerz
• Identity/community
genre/contexts
Genre
Contexts
• Autobiography,
• Generationality/Bilconfession
dungsroman/Bohemianism
• Novel
• Intertextuality/Paro• Travelogue
dy/Elegiac
romance
• Manifesto/document
• Cult status/imitation
Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997
His family life was tumultuous, and would leave a lasting
impression in his work.
Ginsberg’s father was a Jewish socialist and teacher, and his
mother was a radical Communist who would eventually go
completely insane. She would go on to be institutionalized,
and in keeping with medical practices of the day, she was
lobotomized.
His mother’s condition
haunted Allen, and manifested
itself in one of his finest
poems, “Kaddish”.
straight or queer/mad or normal
• Ginsberg went through an early phase after studying at
•
•
Columbia U where he attempted “square” life.
He went to a psychiatric institution to help “fix” himself.
There, he met Carl Solomon who would be the
inspiration for “Howl”, Ginsberg’s most famous poem.
City Lights,
the bookstore
from which
“Howl” was
confiscated.
Howl
•
•
•
•
•
is generally considered the rallying
cry of the alienated youth of
Ginsberg’s generation.
is specifically generational – written
for a generation
is a eulogy for a generation gone mad
is an autobiographical and a coterie
poem
Ginsberg and the American Scream
Obscenity trial for Howl
• the poem deals very frankly
•
•
•
Hear Ginsberg on
censorship.
with drugs, sex, and the
grittier side of city living.
Because of its language and
subject matter, customs
officials seized all copies of
it, which led to a 1957
obscenity trial.
With the help of the
American Civil Liberties
Union, “Howl” was once
again allowed to be sold.
This landmark case set a
precedent against
censorship that has had a
huge effect on the literature
we are able to read today.
Allen would go on to travel the world, and discover
Buddhism for himself.
Unlike the other Beats, Allen embraced the Hippie
Movement. He heavily promoted the use of the
hallucinogenic drug LSD, and was largely influential
in 60s pop culture.
 during the
Summer of Love
Ginsberg and Kaddish
•
•
•
•
•
Dedicated to the poet's mother, Naomi Ginsberg
a narration and a lament arising from Ginsberg's
memories, three years after Naomi's death, of her life
and of his life with her.
the poem is subdivided into 5 sections that address
the dead woman directly.
The highly poetic Part I is a reflection on
 death
 life "all the accumulations of life, that wear us out"
 mortality: the link between the dead and the living
 the great unknown that lies beyond death – not in
the abstract, but in the signs and symbols of Naomi's
life/death and in the issues that remain for her son:
"Now I've got to cut through – to talk to you / - as I
didn't when you had a mouth."
Bob Dylan’s 1978 docudrama Renaldo and Clara
lyrical personae/stylistics/diction
Lyrical personae
• “I” and “my mother”
• Omniscient/prophetic
point of view
• Specific second person
addressee

Naomi
Stylistics/diction
• Biblical metaphor
• Direct address/apostrophe
• Repetitious structures
• Exclamation and
declamation
• Curses and blessings
• Stream of consciousness
• The long line (Whitman,
the Torah)
thematics/themes
• Violence and
• The individual vs. the
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
destruction
Madness
Quest for
connection
Institutions/mental
hospital
Travel and exile
memory  name
the unnamable
•
•
ghost/phantom
Death/darkenss
Struggle between
madness and
normalcy
Questing/finding
Holiness (kaddish)
genre/contexts
genre
• Long poem
• Unrhymed poetry
• Base + variation
 (no more, toward)
• Incantation
• rhythmic chant
• eulogy for the
mother
contexts
• Autobiography
• confession
• Biblical (Jewish)
intertextuality
• Kaddish
 the magnification
and sanctification of
God's name.
 ritual of mourning
Generation X autobiographies
Douglas Coupland: Polaroids from the
Dead
• a collection of short stories
• the theme is that each story is
written from a collection of old
polaroids Coupland found in a drawer.
• the book describes the 1990s, a
decade that "seemed to be living in a
1980s hangover".
fragmentations
•
•
topics include various stories ranging
from commentaries on film to
concerts, and famous people such as
Marylyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain
the book forms in part a collage of
menus, scraps of conversation, and
postings from bulletin boards.
theme as generational genre
•
•
•
•
history
memory
death
personal confession in the names of…




Harold and Maude / official website
parents and children
young and old
generalized others and particularized
selves
Reality Bites (1994; dir. Ben Stiller)
•
•
•
Gen X autobiography about love in
the 90s
generation gaps are particularly
articulated in the tension between
materialism and idealism
concerns:
 how are ideologies formed?
 what is the position of the self as an
artist in relation to ideology?
Helen Childress (screen writer)
•
"The film was so personal to me. It’s
not like I researched anything. I
honestly just wrote about myself and
my experiences and my friends’
experiences. I actually lived off my
Dad’s gas card for a couple months.
It’s funny when people say it’s so
commercial. God, my life is
commercial?"