John Clellon Holmes

John Clellon Holmes

Introduction

John Cllellon Holmes, born was born in 1926 in Massachusetts and died of cancer at 62 years old in Middeltown.

He grew up during the atrocities of the second world war. John Cllellon Holmes had already depicted fascination for poetry and composed his first poem at age 11. Holmes came from a modest background and rose in social rank through his education and attended prestigious universities such as Yale university or Brown University. and gravitated  towards literary social circles.

Development

John Clellon Holmes is regarded as a spokesman and one of the most important personalities of the “beat generation”. He published his first novel in 1952,” Go” (5five years ahead of “On the Road”) and is considered by many to be the first published novel to depict the “beat generation”. The semi biographical novel depicts his spiritual crisis between trying to develop his relationship with his friends and maintain his relatively stable marriage to his wife. His highly critical approach to materialism links Holmes to the “beat generation”. In his “fictional” book Holmes uses modernist techniques and the first point of view is to elaborate his views and opinions. “Go”is very similar to “On the Road” as it follows early Beat life in a fictional format.

In his next novel “The horn” published in 1958 Holmes talks about Jazz musicians. The importance of jazz is emphasised during the length of this novel. The influence of jazz especially behop (style of jazz which uses very few number of instruments) for the “beat generation”. He highlights the despair of a jazz musician named Edgar who is troubled by issues in his personal life but ends on a happy note by emphasizing expressions of hope and faith.  This novel again underlines the importance of the beat generation for the author and he can be considered as somewhat of a socialist giving a critical analysis on relationships and society.

In addition to these novels the author wrote ''Get Home Free'' in 1964, ''Nothing More to Declare'' in 1967 and ''The Bowling Green Poems' in 1977.He then wrote in 1988 “Dire coasts” and lastly the author wrote “Night music”.

John Clellon Holmes devotion to “Beat generation” is without question and will remain throughout history as one of most influential American novelists. Even though his death his somewhat forgotten his legacy remains.

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