Kenneth Rexroth’s late ’60’s essay was written at the height of the counterculture and, looking back at its sources and development, unearths the truly radical elements that were lost with the drama, conspicuousness, superficiality and co-optation.
“Although all the literary editors and the academicians were busy telling the world in the early fifties that the age of experiment and revolt was over, a very few critics, myself amongst them, had begun to point out that this slogan alone showed how complete was the breakdown of communications between the generations. Under the very eyes of the pre-war generation a new age of experiment and revolt far more drastic in its departures, far more absolute in its rejections, was already coming into being….”
Related:
- “Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation” (Rexroth)
- “Beginnings of a New Revolt” (Rexroth)
- “<a href=”http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/songs.htm
” title=””>Subversive Aspects of Popular Songs” (Rexroth)
