Tradition and Rebellion: Gregory Corso’s Beat Psychology of Self-Expression Kelsey Norris College

When one thinks of the Beat Generation they immediately think of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso, who made the movement so well-known. They were three men who loved the pleasures in life, and the extremes in which they could use them. Self-expression was a major component in their emotionally charged pieces of spontaneity and passion. They represented rebellion in America, and the destruction of traditionalist values. They feared disappearing into the oblivion of life without a trace; no longer in the deviant thoughts of youth. They had an urge to transmit their perverted reasoning to start an epidemic of brooding. Life is meant to challenge one's identity, which these writers emphasized in their own daring pieces of introversion. Corso followed the teachings of Ginsberg and pulled inspiration from the rhythmic structuring of earlier writers, like Edgar Allan Poe and Percy Bysshe Shelley to really hone in on his own style.

Gregory Corso was the youngest of the Beat prophets but also the most Beat of the group because of his difficult childhood. He grew up in an orphanage and became a product of his environment. Trouble followed him in his teenage years and led to a three-year prison stint that made him reflect...