Beat Myths in Literature

Book excerpt: Beat Myths in Literature reassesses the work of women poets associated with the Beat Generation from the critical lens of revisionist discourses. Using the metaphor and the critical lens of looking back, an act infused with feminist implications after Adrianne Rich (1972), the volume focuses on poetry, fiction, and autobiographical writing to analyze the different ways in which Beat women used revisionist discourses to refashion the Beat Generation and establish themselves as literary and artistic subjects. Offering the first comprehensive study of the use of mythology in the Beat Generation, Beath Myths in Literaute: Revisionist Strategies in Beat Women focuses on the specific re-writing or revisioning of mythical texts. As such, it studies the ways in which Beat poets incorporate mythology into their works, both through the feminist reinvention or appropriation of ancient myths, but also by debunking more contemporary myths used to contain women in particular social and artistic roles. Furthermore, this volume expands Rich’s notion of re-vision, considering memoirs and autobiographies as factual and fictional re-interpretations of history. Seen through the eyes of revisionist studies and the poets’ investment in “personal myth”, the book establishes new points of entrance into works that allow us to explore the feminist, political, and poetical relevance of the work of Beat women.