Beat Myths in Literature
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 Adrienne 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, Beat Myths in Literature: 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
Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo holds a PhD in postwar American literature from the University of Murcia (Spain) and is currently a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Modern Languages at Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Murcia. Her research focuses on gender and feminism in postwar and avant-garde American poetry. She is co-editor of ruth weiss: Beat Poetry, Jazz, Art (2021), and has published journal articles and book chapters on Beat women and Beat-related poets such as Anne Waldman, ruth weiss, Harold Norse, Diane di Prima, or Joanne Kyger.