William S. Burroughs

The Apocalypse of William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. (William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 7) In 1980, William S. Burroughs delivered a speech at the Planet Earth Conference at the Institute of Ecotechnics in Aix-en-Provence titled ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.1 In this speech, Burroughs, following religious tradition

children stirred a debate on the morality of his proposal. Two hundred and thirty years later in 1959, William S. Burroughs published a novel entitled Naked Lunch, which dealt with the desperate struggle of drug addiction and the governments role in rehabilitating addicts. Inspired by Swifts Modest Proposal, Burroughs satirical portrait of drug addiction was also controversial. Both Swift and Burroughs addressed serious issues of their respective times, with both drug addiction and homeless

Every revolution has begun with a vision. The beat poetry rebellion’s just happened to be opioid-induced. Picture this: the 1950’s. With the threat of nuclear war on the horizon during the Cold War, the citizens of the United States began to detest their government. In 1952, homosexuality was officially classed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 1955, Allen Ginsberg first performed Howl, which would soon become the most widely controversial beat

This quote, from Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road, is a brilliant example of the overall feel of the Beat Generation. Jack Kerouac is one of the most influential writers of the Beat Generation, rivaled only by the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burrough. But what exactly is the Beat Generation? What does it mean? Who of note was involved? When did it take place? The “Beat Generation” is a play on words, implying that the participants

A form of literature evolved around the 50s that changed the course for all writers to come. This new style of writing arose from the literature movement known as the Beat Generation. It motivated a change. During this time the authors questioned societal norms and were unafraid to address previously forbidden topics such as sex, drugs, and other deviant behaviors or in other words the "dark" aspects of life. These writers not only wrote but experienced much of what they penned. They often lived

Kerouac was distraught with the complacency of living in one place, and set out with no real place to go, and as he writes in response to the farmer “we didn’t know the answer to the question, but it was a damn good question” (Kerouac). The 1940’s, post war America was looking up, the Great Depression was just coming to an end, but along with those that so eagerly bought into the consumerism of the time, arose a nation’s youth that was “alienated, restless, and dissatisfied.” looking for something

group of authors that researched and influenced American culture and politics at the time. It can be understood to say that the Beat Generation was the precursor for the Flower Children of the 1960’s. These group of authors of the Beat Generation included Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Sal Paradise and others. Majority of the work of the Beat Generation was recognized and published during the 1950s. Jack Kerouac’s first novel “Town and City” was published in 1950 was an autobiography

forever changed the nature of American literature. They offered a method of escape from the unimaginative world we live in. There are many different writers who's work contributed to the literature of the beat movement; however; Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg were the most

speaks. The means are our machines. These prime agents of the ex- plosive force, Nova, are factors of geometric progression to the Count Down and we better catch up on their methods, but quick. Cut-Ups are Machine Age knife-magic, revealing Pandora 's box to be the downright nasty Stone Age gimmick it is. Cut through what you are reading. Cut this page now. But copies—after all, we are in Proliferation, too —to do cut-ups and fold-ins until we can deliver the Reality Machine in commercially reasonable

In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a story is told through the eyes of a large Columbian Indian who is a patient at a mental institution. His story explains all that has happened since he has been there. The key to his success is that no one seems to acknowledge his existence and would not hide secrets around him because he was thought to be deaf and dumb. He finds a way to learn everything that has happened, and he will eventually meet a revolutionary man who will change both his life