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....
Already at BPS are these related Rexroth essays.
Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation;
Beginnings of a New Revolt; and
Subversive Aspects of Popular Songs.
Rexroth repeats an interesting observation about the anti-war groups (Vietnam era) who effectively repeated the criticism of WWI leveled by Wilfred Owen: that the War was an "old man's war--but fought by the children."
ReplyDeleteIOW, a war for prestige, not for any other good reason.
Maybe, maybe not. But Rexroth also makes a very good point--that after 1967 or so, the US did a VERY poor job of 'selling' the Vietnam conflict.
Perhaps it's because Vietnam falls outside of the 'golden circle' proposed by MacArthur--the 'circle' necessary for the US to control.
If Owen intended that as a criticism, it sounds more like a truism.
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