The View from ""on the Road
The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac
Will be published approx. on 30. October 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-0-8093-2384-5 (ISBN)
Description
Through careful analysis of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Omar Swartz argues that Kerouac's influence on American society is largely rhetorical. Kerouac's significance as a cultural icon can be best understood, Swartz asserts, in terms of traditional rhetorical practices and principles. To Swartz, Kerouac is a rhetor who symbolically reconstructs his world and offers arguments and encouragements for others to follow. Swartz proposes that On the Road constitutes a ""rhetorical vision,"" a reality-defining discourse suggesting alternative possibilities for growth and change. Swartz asserts that the reader of Kerouac's On the Road becomes capable of responding to the larger, confusing culture in a strategic manner. Kerouac's rhetorical vision of an alternative social and cultural reality contributes to the identity of localized cultures within the United States.
Reviews / Votes
In a book that is both intellectually insightful and a pleasure to read, Omar Swartz argues that Kerouac's novel is a vision for living. Written in an age of stability and conformity, On the Road urged its readers to travel freely with only occasional visits to stability. Through Swartz's discussion of deviance, sexuality, and Dean Moriarty, it becomes apparent that Kerouac presaged not only the Beat Generation and the hippies, but also our mobile phone and laptop computer society. For Swartz, it is the experience of a text that changes us, and The View from On the Road: The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac is a text well worth experiencing. - Craig Allen Smith, Wayne State University; ""Swartz has produced a valuable book.... Somebody stands up and speaks the truth. How wonderful to read this."" - Beat SceneMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Carbondale
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
243 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8093-2384-5 (9780809323845)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Omar Swartz is the author of Conducting Socially Responsible Research: Critical Theory, Neo-Pragmatism, and Rhetorical Inquiry and The Rise of Rhetoric and Its Intersections with Modern Critical Thought.