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Spontaneous Minds And Electric Romanticism: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Dylan, Joplin, Sasha Tamar Strelitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation postulates a sub-category of Romanticism: electric Romanticism. As opposed to its “acoustic” forebear, electric Romanticism exists in an electric age, beginning after Henry David Thoreau’s rumination on the telegraph wire as an electric rendering of the æolian harp image. Romantic poets used the æolian harp to analogize the act of writing activities set into motion by spontaneous thoughts, a central attribute of the Romantic literary movement. The modernized electric version of the æolian harp—the telegraph wire—signals that electric Romanticism branches off from its source and evolves along with technology to engage more synchronously with the spontaneous.

Electric Romantics …