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Orpheus Emerged

Page 17

by Jack Kerouac


  the universal human goal –- as opposed to the

  goals unique to a given cultural context. If a

  man sacrifices his life for his earthly goal, the

  ubermensch ("superman") would arise from

  that sacrificial self-destruction.

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  Nietzsche. German philosopher, clas-

  sical scholar, and poet Frederich Nietszche

  (1844-1900) is noted for his theory of the uber-

  mensch (“superman”). Nietszche set himself

  against the systematic philosophy of the first part

  of the 19th Century, particularly that of Hegel.

  He tried to go beyond the rational to the irra-

  tional, human level. He rejected Christianity

  because he felt it directed human thought away

  from this world and into the next, thereby ren-

  dering man incapable of coping with the reality

  of everyday life; he said that Christianity teaches

  men how to die but not how to live. He went

  insane in 1889, and remained so until he died a

  year later.

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  Zarathustra. Frederich Nietzsche

  wrote a philosophical narrative called Thus

  Spake Zarathustra, in which the Persian

  philosopher Zarathustra (also called

  Zoroaster) spouts the doctrine of the ubermen-

  sch, and other Nietzschian ideas. The word

  ubermensch originally appeared in Goethe’s

  Faust (see Faustus). Nietzsche used it to mean the person who devotes himself to achieving

  the universal human goal –- as opposed to the

  goals unique to a given cultural context. If a

  man sacrifices his life for his earthly goal, the

  ubermensch ("superman") would arise from

  that sacrificial self-destruction.

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  Text

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  Baudelaire.

  Charles Pierre

  Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote only one vol-

  ume of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal ( The Flowers

  of Evil), yet this work established him as one

  of the most important figures among the

  French "symbolists" (Rimbaud, Verlaine,

  Mallarme, among others). He led a famously

  decadent life, and died at forty-six. One strik-

  ing characteristic of his poetry is its fascina-

  tion with the beauty of the perverse or morbid.

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  Nietzsche. German philosopher, clas-

  sical scholar, and poet Frederich Nietszche

  (1844-1900) is noted for his theory of the uber-

  mensch (“superman”). Nietszche set himself

  against the systematic philosophy of the first part

  of the 19th Century, particularly that of Hegel.

  He tried to go beyond the rational to the irra-

  tional, human level. He rejected Christianity

  because he felt it directed human thought away

  from this world and into the next, thereby ren-

  dering man incapable of coping with the reality

  of everyday life; he said that Christianity teaches

  men how to die but not how to live. He went

  insane in 1889, and remained so until he died a

  year later.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Brahms. German Romantic composer

  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was noted for

  reconciling the conflicting claims of lyricism

  and classicism.

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  Text

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  Baudelaire.

  Charles Pierre

  Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote only one vol-

  ume of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal ( The Flowers

  of Evil), yet this work established him as one

  of the most important figures among the

  French "symbolists" (Rimbaud, Verlaine,

  Mallarme, among others). He led a famously

  decadent life, and died at forty-six. One strik-

  ing characteristic of his poetry is its fascina-

  tion with the beauty of the perverse or morbid.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Stravinsky.

  Russian composer Igor

  Stravinsky (1882-1971) – like Pablo Picasso in art,

  Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot in poetry, and James

  Joyce in fiction – was a key figure in the further-

  ance of the modernist sensibility. His early works

  for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet -- including "The

  Firebird," and " Petruchka" – were considered revolutionary. The premiere performance of "The

  Rite of Spring," in 1913, was considered so shock-

  ing that it provoked a riot.

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  Brahms. German Romantic composer

  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was noted for

  reconciling the conflicting claims of lyricism

  and classicism.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Stravinsky.

  Russian composer Igor

  Stravinsky (1882-1971) – like Pablo Picasso in art,

  Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot in poetry, and James

  Joyce in fiction – was a key figure in the further-

  ance of the modernist sensibility. His early works

  for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet -- including "The

  Firebird," and " Petruchka" – were considered revolutionary. The premiere performance of "The

  Rite of Spring," in 1913, was considered so shock-

  ing that it provoked a riot.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Rimbaud. French symbolist poet Arthur

  Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote hallucinatory

  verse that strongly influenced the surrealists

  and modern poetry in general. His best-

  known works are Les Illuminations (1886), Le

  Bateau ivre (1871), and Une Saison en Enfir ( A Season in Hell) (1873) – a spiritual/psychological autobiography in prose-poem form. He

  broke away from a poor, religious, provincial

  childhood and fled at age fifteen to Paris,

  where he studied occult writings, Plato, the

  kabbala, and Buddhism. He deliberately

  debauched himself in order to reach a tran-

  scendent world through sin and suffering. He

  wrote all his published poetry before the age

  of twenty.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Brahms. German Romantic composer

  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was noted for

  reconciling the conflicting claims of lyricism

  and classicism.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

 
Shostakovich. Russian composer

  Dmitry Dmitryevich Shostakovich (1906-

  1975) wrote popular orchestral works early in

  his career, but then incurred the disapproval

  of the Soviets for what was seen as Western

  decadence. His Symphony No. 5 (1937)

  regained official approval. His late work,

  Symphony No. 13 (1962), aroused consider-

  able controversy because the text (by Russian

  poet Yevtushenko) described the Nazi slaugh-

  ter of Jews at Babi Yar, and referred to contin-

  uing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Rimbaud. French symbolist poet Arthur

  Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote hallucinatory

  verse that strongly influenced the surrealists

  and modern poetry in general. His best-

  known works are Les Illuminations (1886), Le

  Bateau ivre (1871), and Une Saison en Enfir ( A Season in Hell) (1873) – a spiritual/psychological autobiography in prose-poem form. He

  broke away from a poor, religious, provincial

  childhood and fled at age fifteen to Paris,

  where he studied occult writings, Plato, the

  kabbala, and Buddhism. He deliberately

  debauched himself in order to reach a tran-

  scendent world through sin and suffering. He

  wrote all his published poetry before the age

  of twenty.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Brahms. German Romantic composer

  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was noted for

  reconciling the conflicting claims of lyricism

  and classicism.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Rachmaninoff. Russian composer

  and pianist Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff

  (1873-1943) wrote complex, passionate, rhap-

  sodic music, notably "Prelude in C-sharp

  minor," and the piano concertos.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Stravinsky.

  Russian composer Igor

  Stravinsky (1882-1971) – like Pablo Picasso in art,

  Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot in poetry, and James

  Joyce in fiction – was a key figure in the further-

  ance of the modernist sensibility. His early works

  for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet -- including "The

  Firebird," and " Petruchka" – were considered revolutionary. The premiere performance of "The

  Rite of Spring," in 1913, was considered so shock-

  ing that it provoked a riot.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Brahms. German Romantic composer

  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was noted for

  reconciling the conflicting claims of lyricism

  and classicism.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Rachmaninoff. Russian composer

  and pianist Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff

  (1873-1943) wrote complex, passionate, rhap-

  sodic music, notably "Prelude in C-sharp

  minor," and the piano concertos.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

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  Tchelichev.

  Exiled from Russia

  during the revolution, Pavel Tchelichev (1898-

  1957) fled to Berlin and then to Paris, where

  he designed sets for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet

  (see Stravinsky). He eventually settled in the

  United States, and was best known for his

  experimental paintings, characterized by

  multiple/simultaneous perspectives and the

  use of materials other than paint (sand, coffee,

  etc.). He most celebrated painting, Hide and

  Seek (1942), depicts a tree composed of

  images of infants and children, along with

  hidden spectres of old age and death.

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  Joyce.

  Irish novelist, poet, short-story

  writer James Joyce (1882-1941) is best known

  for his revolutionary novel, Ulysses. His initial collection of stories, Dubliners (1914), is set in

  the beloved/despised homeland he left in

  1902 at the age of twenty. His first novel, the

  autobiographical Portrait of the Artist as a

  Young Man (1916), describes his rebellion

  against his Jesuit upbringing, Catholicism,

  and Irish nationalism, and the development of

  his artist sensibility. He followed the sensa-

  tional publication of Ulysses (1922) with the

  experimental and complex Finnegans Wake

  (1939), characterized by the use of a unique

  language of invented words, puns, and

  obscure allusions.

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  Rachmaninoff. Russian composer

  and pianist Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff

  (1873-1943) wrote complex, passionate, rhap-

  sodic music, notably "Prelude in C-sharp

  minor," and the piano concertos.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Degas. French painter Edgar Degas

  (1834-1917) is closely associated with the

  Impressionists. Although he painted, drew,

  made lithographs and etchings, and worked

  in clay, he is best known for his pastel por-

  trayals of ballet dancers, laundresses, and

  other women subjects.

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  Shostakovich. Russian composer

  Dmitry Dmitryevich Shostakovich (1906-

  1975) wrote popular orchestral works early in

  his career, but then incurred the disapproval

  of the Soviets for what was seen as Western

  decadence. His Symphony No. 5 (1937)

  regained official approval. His late work,

  Symphony No. 13 (1962), aroused consider-

  able controversy because the text (by Russian

  poet Yevtushenko) described the Nazi slaugh-

  ter of Jews at Babi Yar, and referred to contin-

  uing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  Gide. Like his contemporary, James

  Joyce, French writer Andre Gide (1869-1951)

  rebelled against his religious (Protestant)

  upbringing, and his reaction against the pro-

  hibitions of revealed religion informed his life

  and work. He gained notoriety for his open

  discussion of homosexuality and promotion of

  unabashed indulgence in the pleasures of the

  flesh. He was preoccupied with the question

  of man’s will, and agreed with Dostoyevsky

  (a strong influence) that it is subject to good
/>   and evil impulses, not related to love, hate, or

  self-interest. This led to his development of

  the concept of the acte gratuit ("gratuitous act") – a seemingly inexplicable action, motivated solely by a personal need to assert one’s

  individuality, and thus the only human behav-

  ior that reveals one’s essential character. (In

  the novel, Lafcadio’s Adventures, Gide pres-

  ents a murder as an acte gratuit.)

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  Rimbaud. French symbolist poet Arthur

  Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote hallucinatory

  verse that strongly influenced the surrealists

  and modern poetry in general. His best-

  known works are Les Illuminations (1886), Le

  Bateau ivre (1871), and Une Saison en Enfir ( A Season in Hell) (1873) – a spiritual/psychological autobiography in prose-poem form. He

  broke away from a poor, religious, provincial

  childhood and fled at age fifteen to Paris,

  where he studied occult writings, Plato, the

  kabbala, and Buddhism. He deliberately

  debauched himself in order to reach a tran-

  scendent world through sin and suffering. He

  wrote all his published poetry before the age

  of twenty.

  RETURN TO PREVIOUS

  LiveREADS

  LINK

  Text

  Hyperlink

  De Quincey. English essayist and crit-

  ic Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was a

  leading commentator on the romantic move-

  ment, as was closely associated with

  Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other major liter-

  ary figures of the era. His best known work

  was an autobiographical memoir, Confessions

  of an Opium Eater (1822), in which he dis-

  cusses the growth and effects of his opium

  habit.

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  Wagner. The German composer, con-

  ductor, and author Richard Wagner (1813-

  1883), whose reputation is based mostly on

  his operas. His most prodigious work, the

  four-part cycle Der Ring des Nibelungun, took

  him twenty-five years to complete. A com-

  mon theme of many of his operas is the search

  for an ideal woman, unconditionally devoted

  to the hero, who is so pure in her devotion as

 

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