'Forest Beatniks' and 'Urban Thoreaus': Beat literature and nature

Since the Beat Movement first rose to attention in 1955, critics have tended to view it as an urban phenomenon--the product of a post-war youth culture with roots in the cities of New York and San Francisco. This study examines another side of the Beat Movement: its strong desire for a reconnection with nature. Although each took a different path in attaining this goal, the four writers considered here--Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Lew Welch, and Michael McClure--sought a new and closer connection with the natural world.; For Snyder, a significant part of this reconnection with nature involved breaking down the barriers which had previously kept discussion of the human body--and human sexuality--out of the most genteel of American literary genres: nature writing. One of Snyder's most enduring contributions in the field of nature writing has been to successfully reintegrate the human body into the landscape as a natural element.; Kerouac's path back to the natural world, as evidenced in The Dharma Bums (1958), made use of a number of models from both American and Chinese traditions. Using Han-Shan, Thoreau, and Muir as models for a prophesied "rucksack revolution," Kerouac's writing about nature anticipates the counterculture's emerging interest in nature and ecology.; California poet Lew Welch chose a hermit's gradual withdrawal into what he called "the world that is not man" as his means of reconnection to the natural world. This study's chapter on Welch examines the process of this withdrawal through both his poetry and letters.; For McClure, the means of reconnection with nature is found in the modern scientific disciplines of biology and ecology. Among McClure's poetic goals are the rediscovery of what he has termed "the biological self," and the realization of humanity's "mammalian possibilities."; The final chapter examines the work of several other writers of the Beat period and their contributions in regard to nature and environmental writing: Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Kirby Doyle, Ed Sanders, and Richard Brautigan. Finally, the conclusion examines the impact of the Beats on the environmental movement of the 1970's and on the development of the current "Deep Ecology" perspective.