Chapter 12 Unexploded Bombshells: Beat (Non-)Subversion in the Francophone and Flemish Crucibles
In: Beat Literature in a Divided EuropePurchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
Addressing it in terms of both presence and absence, Bellarsi and Watson question “subversion” construed as a monolithic process. As revealed by their reception in France and the neighbouring Lowlands, the transgressive edge of Beat voices was eroded by the fact that they were coming “home” to the avant-gardes that had nurtured them. Contrasting writers like Pierre Joris and Jotie T’Hooft, Bellarsi and Watson also show that the cultural status and capital of a given language inevitably affects how the Beat rebellion has circulated and mutated. In Flanders, where the struggle for the recognition of Flemish culture remains inseparable from the concept of subversion, emulating the Beats has meant incorporating their themes and poetics on home ground and in the mother tongue. By contrast, for Francophone writers, recycling Beat subversion has implied breaking with “Francocentrism” and embracing both a cultural and linguistic “nomadism.”