by Jack Kerouac
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Blake.
English poet, engraver, painter,
and mystic William Blake (1757-1827) was a
visionary: he bypassed organized religion and
experienced God directly; his personal visions
formed his idiosyncratic mythology. His most
famous works are Songs of Innocence, Songs of
Experience, and The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell.
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Spengler. German historian
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) is best known
for his philosophical work, The Decline of the
West, in which he maintained that history pro-
gresses in natural phases, and each culture
grows, matures, and decays. He predicted
that Western culture, post World War I, was in
its final stage.
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Prometheus. The Greek god who
stole fire from heaven and gave it to man. As
a punishment, Prometheus was chained to a
mountain; an eagle ate his liver every day, but
it grew back each night. He was eventually
rescued by Heracles.
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Orpheus. In Greek mythology, Orpheus
was a beloved musician, the son of the muse
Calliope and Apollo, and a follower of Dionysus
(the god of wine and fertile crops). He married
Eurydice, but she was killed by a snake while
fleeing the advances of Aristaeus. Orpheus
descended to Hades to find her. His playing of
the lyre so delighted Hades himself that Orpheus
was permitted to take Eurydice back with him,
provided that he did not look at her until they
arrived in the upper world. When they were
nearly there, however, he no longer heard her
behind him, and he looked back. Eurydice
returned to Hades. He could not get over the
loss of his love, and the women in his home of
Thrace were so outraged that they tore him to
pieces during a bacchanalian orgy. The pieces of
his body were collected by the Muses, and buried
at the foot of Mt. Olympus; but his head was car-
ried out to sea and eventually came ashore on
the island of Lesbos, where it became an oracle.
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Burroughs.
William Seward
Burroughs (1914-1997) was a student at
Columbia University when Jack Kerouac met
him there. The scion of a rich family, he
became a heroin addict and based his first
novels -- Junk (written as William Lee and
published in 1953, then reissued as Junky in
1964) and Naked Lunch (1959) -- on his drug-
related experiences. Burroughs’ writing is
characterized by biting and hilarious satire of
contemporary society, and disjointed, phan-
tasmagorical prose.
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Jan. 1944
We are all too sensitive to go on: it is too
cold, and our bodies are too exhausted.
There is too much life around. The multi-
tude is feverish and ill. There is war where
men sleep on the snow, and when we
waken from sleep we do not desire to go
on. I hiccup very violently, twice. This is
an age that has created sick men, all weak-
lings like me. What we need is a journey
to new lands. I shall embark soon on one
of these. I shall sleep on the grass and
eat fruit for breakfast.
Perhaps when I
return, I shall be well again.
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Brief notes on “The Half Jest”
(Orpheus Emerged)
Michael – the genius of imagination and art, 22
Paul – the genius of life and love, 22
Maureen – Michael’s mistress, 32 years old
Claude [Arthur] – Michael’s friend, a student,
20
Leo – a student, 18
Anthony – Paul’s friend, a drunkard and artist,
38
“Toni” – Claude’s [Arthur’s] girl, 21
Jules – a strange student, 17
Marie – Dmitri’s [Anthony’s] beautiful wife, 27
“Barbara” – Maureen’s friend, 25
“Robert” – a psychopath, 26
Helen – the beloved of Marcel Opheus, 21
Marcel Orpheus, who is never seen, 22
Setting – A large city called West, in the land of
Promethea – or vice versa.
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Symbolized Idea – M. trying to transcend
human emotions to those of God – emotions of
creation, or of Eternity, etc. Thus he abandons
his human self, Paul, and strikes off for the High
Regions. But there he finds himself lost, lonely,
and out of his element: his species-self, biologi-
cally speaking, holds him back. A fish trying to
live out of water, on air alone, M. finds that his
life exists unquestionably on human terms: he
cannot be God, or be like him, because he is
human. This makes him see that the highest
state he can attain is that of the "Lyre of God,"
and in a contemporaneous sense, that of God’s
representative to man. "A high meeting…" As
Orpheus, the artist-man, rather than merely
man, or merely Prometheus (the artist), he
achieves his great goal of wholeness. This is a
"new vision" – possible only after the cold windy
darknesses of the High Regions have been
explored. The "Impulse of God" poem key to
M.’s whole success – but he transcends, yet
maintains, this success to that of wholeness plus
vision.
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Symbolized Idea – M. trying to transcend
human emotions to those of God – emotions of
creation, or of Eternity, etc. Thus he abandons
his human self, Paul, and strikes off for the High
Regions. But there he finds himself lost, lonely,
and out of his element: his species-self, biologi-
cally speaking, holds him back. A fish trying to
live out of water, on air alone, M. finds that his
life exists unquestionably on human terms: he
cannot be God, or be like him, because he is
human. This makes him see that the highest
state he can attain is that of the "Lyre of God,"
and in a contemporaneous sense, that of God’s
representative to man. "A high meeting…" As
Orpheus, the artist-man, rather than merely
; man, or merely Prometheus (the artist), he
achieves his great goal of wholeness. This is a
"new vision" – possible only after the cold windy
darknesses of the High Regions have been
explored. The "Impulse of God" poem key to
M.’s whole success – but he transcends, yet
maintains, this success to that of wholeness plus
vision.
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Journal
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Symbolized Idea – M. trying to transcend
human emotions to those of God – emotions of
creation, or of Eternity, etc. Thus he abandons
his human self, Paul, and strikes off for the High
Regions. But there he finds himself lost, lonely,
and out of his element: his species-self, biologi-
cally speaking, holds him back. A fish trying to
live out of water, on air alone, M. finds that his
life exists unquestionably on human terms: he
cannot be God, or be like him, because he is
human. This makes him see that the highest
state he can attain is that of the "Lyre of God,"
and in a contemporaneous sense, that of God’s
representative to man. "A high meeting…" As
Orpheus, the artist-man, rather than merely
man, or merely Prometheus (the artist), he
achieves his great goal of wholeness. This is a
"new vision" – possible only after the cold windy
darknesses of the High Regions have been
explored. The "Impulse of God" poem key to
M.’s whole success – but he transcends, yet
maintains, this success to that of wholeness plus
vision.
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March, 1945 – Seeing a lot of Burroughs. He
is responsible for the education of Lucien, whom
I had found, in lieu of his anarchy (rather than in
spite of it), an extremely important person. "I
lean with fearful attraction over the depths of
each creature’s possibilities and weep for all that
lies atrophied under the heavy lid of custom and
morality" – and – "The bastard alone has the
right to be natural." (Gide) These lines elicit a picture of the Burroughs thought. However, the
psychoanalytical probing has upset me prodi-
giously.
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March, 1945 – Seeing a lot of Burroughs. He
is responsible for the education of Lucien, whom
I had found, in lieu of his anarchy (rather than in
spite of it), an extremely important person. "I
lean with fearful attraction over the depths of
each creature’s possibilities and weep for all that
lies atrophied under the heavy lid of custom and
morality" – and – "The bastard alone has the
right to be natural." (Gide) These lines elicit a
picture of the Burroughs thought. However, the
psychoanalytical probing has upset me prodi-
giously.
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1922. Jean-Louis Lebris de
Kerouac born 5 P.M. March 12 in Lowell,
Massachusetts, third child of Gabrielle and
Leo Kerouac, French-Canadian emigrants
to New England; brother of Caroline and
Gerard; family lives at 9 Lupine Road.
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1923. Father opens print shop
business, Spotlight Print.
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1926. Brother Gerard dies
from rheumatic fever.
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1933. Skips 6th grade and
enters 7th grade at Bartlett Junior High;
becomes friends with Sebastian Sampas;
writes first short story.
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1938. Excels in football
and baseball at Lowell High School;
flood destroys father’s printshop.
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1939.
Graduates from Lowell High School.
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1939-1940.
Attends Horace Mann Preparatory School
in New York City; short stories, "The
Brothers" and "Une Veille de Noel" pub-
lished in Horace Mann Quarterly; hears
jazz at Harlem clubs; smokes marijuana
for the first time; loses his virginity with a
Manhattan prostitute.
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1940-1941.
Attends Columbia College on a scholar-
ship; breaks leg in November during a
game; reads Thomas Wolfe novels and
James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man.
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1942-1943.
Serves in Merchant Marine and sails to
Greenland aboard the Dorchester; joins
Navy in February and is discharged on psy-
chiatric grounds in September; sails to
Liverpool on George Weems; returns to
New York and hangs out at Joan Vollmer’s
apartment at 421 W. 118th St.; meets
Lucien Carr.
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1944. Meets William
Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; Carr kills
acquaintance David Kammerer, Kerouac is
arrested for helping Carr dispose of mur-
der weapon; marries Edie Parker to
raise
bail money; Parker and Vollmer move into
apartment at 419 W. 115th St., where
Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs also
stay; Herbert Huncke visits often.
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1945. Completes novella,
Orpheus Emerged, co-writes novella, And
the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, with
Burroughs; hospitalized for throm-
bophlebitis.
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1946. Father dies of cancer
of the spleen; begins The Town and the
City; meets Neal Cassady in December;
marriage to Edie Parker annulled.
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1947.Takes bus to Denver,
meets up with Cassady and Carolyn
Robinson (whom Cassady later marries),
hitchhikes to West Coast; returns to New
York in October.
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1948. Meets John Clellon
Holmes and invents the term "beat gener-
ation"; completes early version of On the
Road based on his 1947 travels.
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1949. Leaves New York in
January with Cassady, Cassady’s wife
Luanne Henderson, and friend Al Hickle
on second cross-country trip; takes bus
from San Francisco to sister’s home in
North Carolina; The Town and the City sold
to Harcourt Brace for $1,000 advance;
moves to Denver.
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1950. The Town and the City
published; drives to Mexico with Cassady,
and visits with Bill and Joan Burroughs;
hitchhikes to New York; marries second
