Daniel Kane
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780231162975
- eISBN:
- 9780231544603
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231162975.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter analyzes the ways in which Lou Reed’s vision of himself as a writer informed his music and lyrics for the Velvet Underground and his solo career. I track how Reed’s engagement with Andy ...
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This chapter analyzes the ways in which Lou Reed’s vision of himself as a writer informed his music and lyrics for the Velvet Underground and his solo career. I track how Reed’s engagement with Andy Warhol and the New York School of poets complicated and troubled his otherwise relatively traditional views of the Poet as oracular figure. The chapter pays special attention to Reed’s stories and poems published in his collegiate-era mimeographed journal Lonely Woman Quarterly, analyzing how these works ultimately fed into Reed’s music and lyrics in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Mixing a world-weary, vernacular tone with bursts of inspired disjunction, or interrupting a straightforward narrative with Joycean free-association, Reed used the journal to sketch the personae that were to prove obstinate presences throughout his career. Reed’s porn-freaks, alcoholics, suburbanite wannabees, drag queens, hustlers, and junkies all got their start at Syracuse University, accompanying Reed on his journey from Lewis to Louis to Luis and, ultimately, Lou.Less
This chapter analyzes the ways in which Lou Reed’s vision of himself as a writer informed his music and lyrics for the Velvet Underground and his solo career. I track how Reed’s engagement with Andy Warhol and the New York School of poets complicated and troubled his otherwise relatively traditional views of the Poet as oracular figure. The chapter pays special attention to Reed’s stories and poems published in his collegiate-era mimeographed journal Lonely Woman Quarterly, analyzing how these works ultimately fed into Reed’s music and lyrics in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Mixing a world-weary, vernacular tone with bursts of inspired disjunction, or interrupting a straightforward narrative with Joycean free-association, Reed used the journal to sketch the personae that were to prove obstinate presences throughout his career. Reed’s porn-freaks, alcoholics, suburbanite wannabees, drag queens, hustlers, and junkies all got their start at Syracuse University, accompanying Reed on his journey from Lewis to Louis to Luis and, ultimately, Lou.
Doris Kadish
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781800859661
- eISBN:
- 9781800852280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781800859661.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter traces Rahv’s story of immigration and explores his psychology as an immigrant. Reaching back to his time in Russia, it considers pogroms, the notorious trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis, ...
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This chapter traces Rahv’s story of immigration and explores his psychology as an immigrant. Reaching back to his time in Russia, it considers pogroms, the notorious trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis, the use of Yiddish and Russian language, and the Bolshevik revolution. It examines his dysfunctional Jewish family, which it relates to the families of other New York Jewish intellectuals. It explores the significance of his father’s beginnings as a peddler, his mother’s Zionism, and the time he spent in Palestine. Some light is shed on the mysteries surrounding his lack of formal education. Detailed analyses of two texts are provided: “Homeless but not Motherless, Variation on a theme by L. Kwitko” by the Ukranian poet Leib Kvitko, which Rahv translated from Yiddish; “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” Delmore Schwartz’s modernist tour de force which appeared in Partisan Review in 1937.Less
This chapter traces Rahv’s story of immigration and explores his psychology as an immigrant. Reaching back to his time in Russia, it considers pogroms, the notorious trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis, the use of Yiddish and Russian language, and the Bolshevik revolution. It examines his dysfunctional Jewish family, which it relates to the families of other New York Jewish intellectuals. It explores the significance of his father’s beginnings as a peddler, his mother’s Zionism, and the time he spent in Palestine. Some light is shed on the mysteries surrounding his lack of formal education. Detailed analyses of two texts are provided: “Homeless but not Motherless, Variation on a theme by L. Kwitko” by the Ukranian poet Leib Kvitko, which Rahv translated from Yiddish; “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” Delmore Schwartz’s modernist tour de force which appeared in Partisan Review in 1937.
