By Samuel Viner
The revolutionary language of counter-cultural literature makes a stride toward the culture of the future, and defiance is essential to this development. Culture is shifted by bold and revolutionary figures. These revolutionary figures learn and understand societal norms, but they refuse to be defined by them. They push these boundaries and embrace new perspectives, and as brazen as they are, they reveal new thoughts and ultimately define the changes of social structures in each generation. James Joyce opens sexual and religious boundaries with “Ulysses: Episode 1” (1918). Joyce sparks Jean Toomer’s writing, and in “Fern” (1922) and “Blue Meridian” (1936), Toomer challenges the view of prostitution and societal labels. Walt Whitman’s “Calamus” poems in Leaves of Grass (1860), too, is a spark for Jean Toomer as he unashamedly and prolifically espouses the American identity to include a wider audience. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” (1841) finds refuge in the American identity, though for him it is about individual thought not collective identity. Patti Smith reflected the likes of each of these authors with her unwavering desire to construct a counter-culture filled with multiplicity. This desire is reflected in her autobiography Just Kids (2010). Emily Witt reminds readers that counter-culture is about expression more than liberation in Future Sex (2016). By examining nuanced social structures, counter-culture authors such as Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Witt, James Joyce, Jean Toomer, and Patti Smith engage the reader in a frank, divergent scrutiny of love, gender, sex, religion, and being true to one’s identity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson critiques the compliance of people to any and all social structures and advocates for the importance of “Self-Reliance.” He opens the revolution of counterculture by looking inward at one’s own desires and identity as opposed to looking outward at external temptations. This individualistic expression defines American counterculture by opening the doors to the perspective of the individual. His argument declares, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles” (5). By repeating the word “nothing,” Emerson boldly claims “triumph” with “principles.” He envelops this concept further with “imitation is suicide,” and that one must “insist on [themself]; never imitate” (5). This confrontational word choices of “suicide” and “triumph of principles” are bold but convincing scrutinies of staying true to self over conforming to a social structure. He provides wisdom through aphorisms, teaching to “trust Thyself” and that “truth is handsomer than the affection of love” (5). These aphoristic statements are critical of the relationship-reliant culture in America that seeks to please one another and seek affirmation, and his aphoristic pedagogical approach to counter-cultural literature establishes the principles followed in the shaping of identity.
Though Emerson uses high language and formal writing structure that speaks to the elite, he is deeply critical of their formulaic culture. He objects to the “finest genius at one of our colleges” that thinks he is “right in being disheartened” whenever he “is not installed in an office within one year after [college] in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York” (5). Emerson vehemently argues: “We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills” (5). For Emerson, the inability to defer from the standard path of learning from another signifies a lack of individualism, of a willingness to be one’s true self rather than conforming to societal standards. He confronts opulence and the leisure of travel, claiming that “he who travels to be amused… travels away from himself” (5). His adversarial rhetoric of “amused” and “away from himself” deconstructs leisure and the behavior of contemporary society as he poses the flippancy of “amused” with the darker reality of “away from himself.” The courageous rhetoric to critique the elite challenged the reader to “live truly” so that “we shall see truly” (5). “Truly,” then, focuses on the idea of everyone being a part of their own class system and identity, not under the constructs of education or societal norms.
James Joyce, too, does not pay homage to the respected Classics of the learned class. He does not revere the Ancient Greek tale of Ulysses, nor respect the invisible boundaries around religion and sex. Puritanical societal norms of separating human sexuality from religion are dismissed as Joyce crudely employs a flippant dialogue describing the body in a revolutionary, uncensored way. This approach challenges the belief that sexuality and religion are indescribable. Joyce’s crude sexual language with critiques of religion simultaneously speaks to the satirical and blasphemous Buck, “Buck Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly: -He who stealth from the poor lendeth to the Lord” (1). Using the word choice “erect” to describe praying hands while also mocking the Beatitudes envelops the vulgarity, mockery, and heretical counter-culture.
He awakens the reader and cultivates social change dialogue with his bold and offensive rhetoric that is central to embracing counter-culture. Such defiant thought blacklisted the revolutionary author Joyce. James Joyce bluntly described genitalia like “prepuces” and taboo bodily functions of “Old Shrunken Paps” that could not provide breast milk (1). Joyce’s work is characterized by its blunt, anti-reticent descriptions of taboo bodily functions that were considered risquée even for the private sphere. The sexual language flouted taboos surrounding sex and genitalia. His revolutionary reputation of taboo standards directly contributed to a development in the literary canon. His blunt and stark descriptions like “old shrunken” awaken the realities instead of living in the myths of voluptuousness and led to the development of a sexually liberated literary culture. Despite being banned from publishing for obscenity and perceived pervertedness, his novel Ulysses established a precedent for counter-revolutionary voices in literature. Challenging censorship, being crudely candid, and defying what was acceptable culminated in a sexual liberation with literature.
Jean Toomer is an example of Joyce’s impact on a greater freedom of expression. Toomer can be considered one of Joyce’s contemporaries, as he challenges and redefines social norms of sexual language to fully embrace the American identity. With a prostitute, Fern, Toomer challenges the power tension between roles, and recognizes the inclusion of fringe people who don’t feel connected to standard sexual identity, reinventing the American acceptance of obscenity. A prostitute, a position seen as both dirty and shunned as well as traditionally feminine and weak becomes the one sought after and in control, “They became attached to her and hungered after finding the barest trace of what she might desire” (2). Expressing their desire with verbs like “attached” and “hungered” in juxtaposition to their knowledge of Fern having the “barest trace,” empowers Fern and diminishes the male role of power, that is conventionally sexually dominant. Leveraging the diction of desire is vital to giving Fern a dominant role in her narrative. Celebrating sexuality was unorthodox yet empowering for women.
In “Blue Meridian,” Toomer challenges the nuance of identity within defined social structures including gender, sex, and religion. With language such as “uncase the religions” and “free the sexes” Toomer envelops his fringe audience by unconventionally redefining traditions. Toomer takes a counter-cultural approach to the binary standard of gender as he declares, “Free the sexes,/ I am neither male nor female nor in-between;/ I am of sex, with male differentiations” (3). His capability to provide nuance to the conventional standards of gender revels a modernist standard and forces his reader to deconstruct a binary vision. Sex and gender have become defined as two different things in contemporary society due to revolutionaries such as Jean Toomer striving to redefine these conventions.
While Toomer is clearly influenced by Joyce in challenging the social norms, he is also revolutionized by Walt Whitman’s ability to challenge the social norms of sex and gender and to envelop the masses in this freeing and thoughtful expression of unity. Whitman’s counterculture expression is different from that of Joyce or Emerson because he does not ostracize the societal greats. Rather he engulfs them into a unified look at the beauty of diversity.
This revolutionary writing of Walt Whitman influenced the American identity. He establishes a romanticized American identity by challenging the bounds of love. He sought for people to “publish [his] name” as the “tenderest lover” (4). Whitman wrote for an egalitarian love that embraced all loves, including his identity of homosexuality, in a country on the brink of Civil War, advocating for solidarity in an American identity. Whitman’s American identity means, “one from Massachusetts shall be comrades to a Missourian” and have “manly affection” and “countless linked hands” (4). He hoped for an American identity that “[would] plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America” (4). In a society filled with hate and division, Whitman chose language, such as “plant companionship,” that enveloped egalitarian language and grounded people in the American imagery of “rivers” over societal constructs. His work is fundamental to the American canon because “[He proceeded]… to tell the secret of [his] nights and days,/ To celebrate the need of comrades” (4). This defiance of division was counter-cultural in a tumultuous society. Whitman’s unapologetic advocacy for camaraderie and solidarity developed the core principles of establishing an American identity.
The developing Bohemian culture to which Whitman conformed in New York City provided a platform to deviate from an elitist writing culture. Christine Stansell, an American historian, elaborates on this stating: “Bohemia both incorporated certain kinds of cultural outsiders and dissenters and made them and their work visible and commercially appealing to urban audiences” (8). The inclusion of dissenters in Bohemian culture allowed for counter-cultural literature. Stansell elaborates: “The metropolis itself became a cabinet-of-curiosities” (8). This “cabinet of curiosities,” the common city folk, opened the opportunity for counterculture writing to flourish and engage new voices.
Patti Smith operated within the modern manifestation of Whitman’s Bohemian culture as she embraced homelessness for the sake of counter-culture. Patti Smith expresses, “[she] couldn’t say [she] fit in, but [she] felt safe” in the city. “No one noticed [her]” and “[She] could move freely” (6). The freedom to explore was enticing for her as she was “free to explore by day” despite having to “[sleep] where she could at night,” (6). The willingness to submit herself to homelessness for the sake of living in the city shows the importance of city life for Patti Smith. Sometimes she “would sleep in the hall near a familiar door” at her job which she thought “wasn’t fun” but she persevered because she “had [her] mantra ‘I’m free, I’m free”’ (6). For a counter-cultural artist like Patti Smith, freedom of expression is everything. Being homeless afforded Patti Smith a freedom as she was no longer confined by the social constructs of bills and financial success. She lived true to herself as Emerson espoused and within the exploration of the city. The city provides a space for Patti Smith to embrace a Bohemian-esque lifestyle in which culture is everything.
A key point of this Bohemian lifestyle denies modern standard gender conventions and instead allows Patti Smith to be a modern manifestation of Walt Whitman’s Bohemian culture. She is repulsed by femininity from childhood from the moment when she is “accosted by [her] mother” to “‘put a shirt on!’” because she was “‘about to become a young lady,”’ (6). She “protests vehemently” against this because she “was never going to become anything but [herself]” and “was of the clan of Peter Pan” that “did not grow up” (6). The playful nature of Patti Smith as innocent child in her fictional “clan of Peter Pan” contrasts with her mother’s desire for her to be a “young lady,” and reveals the bounds of feminine standards. For Patti Smith, it is important to be free and independent in thought and action, much like Emerson espoused. Smith offers a freedom of expression to “become anything but herself.” Her adamant mentality to defy the conventions of gender that require her to maintain certain standards further advocates the ideal of Jean Toomer to exist without the confines of gender. This denial of feminity is uniquely counter-cultural and definitive of her modern Bohemian lifestyle. The beauty standards her mother embodies: “well-endowed,” “heavy scent,” and “red slashes of lipstick” do not fit Patti Smith’s less binary definition of gender. Like Toomer’s “Fern,” Smith redefines the societal ideals of femininity and embraces her own empowerment. The way that Patti Smith fashionably presents herself embodies this counter-cultural ideal of a non-binary gender structure.
Emily Witt’s writing is a continuation of Patti Smith’s critique on modern feminine values. Despite sexual liberation in Internet dating, Witt finds discontentment in the modern system because as critics of the system assert, “What women were described as wanting when it came to sex was not sex at all, but rather a relationship in which one had sex, a structure in which sex happened” (7). This statement reflected back the thoughts and ideas from Jean Toomer’s “Fern” and Patti Smith’s reflections on her mother. Witt acknowledged openly the understated issues from these counterculture authors who had seen but not expressed this feminine sexual identity. Emily Witt found that modern femininity had led to a women’s sexual expression that had become suppressed. “Every sexual expression raised the question of false consciousness” in which “women were described as ‘objectifying themselves,’ ‘degrading themselves,’ or ‘submitting unthinkingly to contemporary pressures’” (7). The outspoken rejection of the modern feminist embrace of sexual liberation with words such as “objectifying” and “degrading” challenges a mode of thought typically thought of as progress. Witt boldly objects to the sexual liberation that had taken long to achieve and at the same time opens yet another door of thought that allows for a change in sexual expression. Emily Witt’s vehement rejection to the state of sexual liberation that cultural change is ongoing and is defined by bold oppositions. Her rejection of the liberation stance embodies the critical position of being true to yourself that Emerson orated.
Neither Patti Smith nor Jean Toomer nor James Joyce nor Emily Witt defined all of the gender nuances; rather, individual thought and deconstruction of ideas allowed space for the creation of individual identities. At the same time, Emily Witt consciously uses the crude, liberating language of authors like Joyce to redefine her counterculture movement. She asserts: “Blow jobs [are] the new kissing” and the modern dating world is defined by “unsolicited dick pics and ‘Meet hot singles in your area who want to f**k you now’” (7). Her candid explicit remarks can be considered a manifestation of Joyce’s crude novel as she crassly expresses men’s genitalia with “dick pics” and sexual relations with “blow jobs” and “f**k” (7). Neither Joyce’s expression on women nor Witt’s expression on sex are sensual or alluring but rather shocking and obscene. A female author’s ability to describe the modern state of dating using language that would have been deemed obscene and blasphemous less than a century prior is instead her own rebellion against societal norms, freeing the reader from her perceived societal expectations and feels like a direct manifestation of Joyce’s willingness to defy taboos. The influence of rebellious writers is undeniable in cultivating changes to what is deemed acceptable within the literary canon.
These influences of counterculture are not limited to femininity or gender or sexual orientation. Not only does Patti Smith offer a new perspective on femininity but a new one on drugs and religion as well. Smith reveres drugs like societal norms revere religion. When describing her best friend Robert Mapplethorpe’s drug use, she makes a contestable comparison to religion. She equates the experience to his religious upbringing expressing, “He loved that feeling [of LSD],” claiming the thrill was similar to what “he used to experience as an altar boy as he stood behind the velvet curtains in his small robe holding the processional cross, readying to march” (6). Similar to James Joyce, Patti Smith writes blasphemously as she compares something about the church to a sin. This comparison contests the idea that drug users cannot grow up in a religious setting; however, she contends that religious upbringing has contributed to drug use. This belief contradicts societal norms, as drugs are not supposed to be associated with religion. Depicting a drug-filled life as one that is also filled with a deep respect for religion contradicts the common conception of many Christians. This rhetoric is particularly powerful in challenging the behavior of individuals raised in religious settings.
Similarly, Toomer defies standard religious conventions as he makes an abstract assertion about his religious identity in “Blue Meridian” declaring: “Uncase the religions/ I am religious” (3). He embraces the power of religion while refusing to accept the standard conventions of religion. He views Judaism from a sexual lens by sensually depicting Fern, a prostitute, illustrating: “If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I followed the curves of her profile” (3). Toomer uses language such as “touched you” and “own sorrow seem trivial” to parallel the formality of religion with an intimate moment of the “curves of her profile,” deconstructing the identity to be sensual as well as sexual. Toomer’s embrace of the complexity of identity reflects Whitman’s America, embracing the complexity of humanity and enveloping the reader in embracing subtleties with the intimacy of his language and unwillingness to imprison people into societal standards and traditions.
The revolutionary rhetoric of these counter-cultural figures is vital to a concurrent historical narrative: revolutionaries expand the boundaries of what is socially acceptable or question the expansion of these boundaries. Ralph Waldo Emerson challenges us to look inward and capturesthe importance of the individual while Walt Whitman embraces looking outward toward redefining love and the possibility of diverse acceptance and unity. Rebellious writers like Patti Smith and Jean Toomer object to binary gender norms, and authors such as Emily Witt contest the acceptance of societal vulgarities for individual desires. Haughty piety and educated snobbery are deconstructed by Joyce, Emerson, and Toomer. Each author writes in a way that challenges thought and engages conversation, revitalizing the American identity and challenging societal norms. Rebels are vital to every generation and should be commended for their crucial work in expanding acceptable practices. Rather than critiquing counter-culture, the general public should strive to understand their reason for defiance because their defiance often defines a generation. One must embrace thought that deviates from one’s own, for a marketplace of ideas cultivates the strongest norms. As “America’s Poet,” Walt Whitman, reflects on the embracing of the counter-culture, in “The Poetry of the Future” (1881), he acknowledges: “The real, the latent and silent bulk of America city or country presents a magnificent mass of material, never before equaled on earth. It is this material, quite unexpressed by literature or art, that in every respect insure the future of the republic” (4). The future of the republic, after all, resides in each of us and our ability to deconstruct ideas not in our ability to follow the rules set before us.
References
- Joyce, James. “Ulysses: Episode 1,” The Little Review, pp. 3 – 22. 1918.
- Toomer, Jean. “Fern,” The Little Review, pp. 25 – 29. 1922.
- Toomer, Jean. “Blue Meridian,” The New American Caravan. 1936.
- Whitman, Walt. “Calamus.” pp. 363. Leaves of Grass, 1860.
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Self-Reliance,” pp. 1-21 (1841).
- Smith, Patti. Just Kids. 2010.
- Witt, Emily. Chapter 2: “Internet Dating,” Future Sex, pp. 15-37 (2016).
- Stansell, Christine. “Whitman at Pfaff’s: Commercial Culture, Literary Life and New York Bohemia at Mid-Century.” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. P. 109. 1993.
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