Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

6.5 Post-War Doubts : A Modern Perspective on the Beat Generation: Ferlinghetti

                                                                              Post-War Doubts

           In a world rife with war and devastation, man must seek an inner courage to combat and transcend the tragedies that surround him. Many postwar Americans of the 1960's also experienced a sense of tragic loss and betrayal as a result of what several described as an unnecessary war which challenged their traditional customs and beliefs. The following poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti suggest the futility of human purpose and certainty, much like the works of Hume. In a time of doubt, man responds by feeling alienated and victimized. As Edward Edinger suggests in Ego and Archetype (1972), "For the present those aware of the problem are obliged to make their own individual search for a meaningful life. Individuation becomes their way of life" (Edinger 107). Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as others of the Beat Generation, suffers in the hands of a seemingly cruel and indifferent society, from which faith and science provide little comfort. An archetypal interpretation here provides a moral background to understand more easily this sense of spiritual estrangement.

                          False Windmills and Demented Roosters in the Poetry of Ferlinghetti

             According to Plato's theory of mimesis, all ideas emerge from God, and external reality represents an illusion of an "ideal" higher in the universe. Therefore, existence rests upon many levels, beginning with God's perfect idea on the first, the earth as an imperfect imitation on the second, man the craftsman's representation on the third, and the artist-portrayer's likeness on the fourth. Consequently, Art, per se, serves as an imperfect human attempt to depict the true "model" (Plato 321-333). In essence, reality to the artist-creator exists solely within his perception, since he merely represents an imitation of imitations. Thus, in Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem "In Goya's Greatest Scenes We Seem to See," "we " as modern man "seem" to see the literal description of the events surrounding Goya's "Etchings on the Disasters of War"; however, one actually views Ferlinghetti's fifth-level interpretation, which according to Plato stands further yet removed from reality. Hence, although truth never changes, man's perception of the ideal varies. In retrospect, both Goya's and Ferlinghetti's concepts of reality appear authentic, but neither proves accurate. The conflict of appearance and reality remains unsolved, and since modern man cannot identify any one particular view as reality, he thus becomes overwhelmed by feelings of uncertainty and loss of purpose. Ferlinghetti reiterates these attitudes in his poem "In Goya's Greatest Scenes We Seem to See," as well as in "In Golden Gate Park That Day" and "Sometime During Eternity."

                The philosophy of existentialism provides one approach to interpreting the appearance –reality conflict. A by-product from Victorian doubt and an outgrowth of World War I and II, existentialism includes the Platonic concept of reality and appearance, and further stresses a loss of man's place in society. To the existentialist life appears futile and chaotic; therefore, man must superimpose a personal meaning upon its apparently chaotic reality. Alone and alienated from the universe, man must create a form of order from absurdity. Logically speaking, this subjective reality produces a self-conscious technique in which life appears as a mere illusion. Psycho-analyst Carl Jung further explains the dichotomy between the real and the Platonic ideal in his theory that modern man's disuse or abandonment of the recurring archetypal patterns and motifs within the subconscious past also leads to his loss of purpose or direction in society (Jung 69). Thus, man becomes alienated in a seemingly chaotic world. In Ferlinghetti's poetry, the author compares the archetypal Edenic Garden to the deteriorating values of the twentieth century. Although Ferlinghetti's lack of definite stanza divisions and use of free verse seem at first illogical, a free flowing rhythm points to his self-conscious technique, not only to produce a unity of mood, but even more, to reveal the author's self-imposed order of imagery and contrast underlying a seemingly disjointed composition. Although the reality or meaning behind "In Goya's Greatest Scenes . . . " initially appears illusory, the author subsequently proves it to be quite deliberate. Ferlinghetti suggests here that any comparison to the Platonic world proves illusory because Platonism involves an "ideal" toward which man strives. The paradox is obvious, however. Existentialism purports no absolute values; hence, any form of struggle toward perfection proves ultimately futile. Consequently, perception, as in mimesis, takes precedence over reason.