My thesis statement is: "To what extent did the Vietnam War Have an Impact on the Literary Movements in 1960-1975?" I have been researching, and, so far, I have discovered that there were many literary movements in progress during the Vietnam War. Instead of doing ALL of them, I am going to research the impacts on the Civil Rights movement, the Beat generation, and the counterculture.
This paper discusses the "secret" history as provided by the literature during the Vietnam War. The author explains his view that the actual history ("straight" history, as he puts it) is more skewed than the history as viewed by literature. Literature provides personal insight instead of straight facts which were probably fabricated by the government in the first place. He examines the works of Allen Ginsberg, Ron Kovic, and Tim O'Brien.
This next article is about the poor usage of anti-Vietnam War poetry in anthologies.
The writer explains his research over anti-Vietnam War poetry in anthologies. He searched many anthologies, and found very few poems that are taught. Since it comprises most of the poetry written by Americans, it is very disturbing that such a small amount of antiwar poetry in the Vietnam War era is published and taught. He also decries the choices of the editors of the anthologies to only use the poetry of Bly and Merwin because their poetry doesn't cover most of the depth of the involvement of the Vietnam War in the poetry movement.
This is a parody of the poem Howl. I thought it was interesting, so I decided to include it, so others can see. Instead of talking about the "best minds of [his] generation" who are "angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo," he modernizes it to say: "HTML-headed Web-sters coding for the infinite broadband connection to that undiscovered e-commerce mother lode." It seems pretty modern, and I like the author's ability to take a poem from the sixties and change the wording to fit today's people.
This is an example of poetry during the Vietnam War. In it, Ginsberg expresses his anti-war sentiments. His motivation for the poem came from the death of his mother (an insane woman for whom he approved a lobotomy) and from his friend, Carl Solomon. In the poem, he is also very open about drugs and sexuality.
This site gives a typed interview between Daniel Bourne and Tim O'Brien. In it, Tim O'Brien discusses how his draft into the Vietnam War inspired him to write, his own demons, and the some of the themes of his stories. He also talks about his personal struggle with questioning reality.
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