Iconoclasm as a Reflection of the Postmodern Zeitgeist: A Critical Study of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind

Abstract

Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (1919- ), the American poet, painter, film writer and liberal activist, has been reviewed as a poet of life whose writings recast a variety of ideas and implications through which he reveals how the abusive materialism and capitalism hover man's life during the postmodern era. Thus, he is appreciated as an iconoclast since he criticizes severely the impact of these postmodern trends from the citizen's perspective. Ferlinghetti believes that the poet's role is an agitator for freedom of expression, social justice and political impartiality. In A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), Ferlinghetti appears at his best. He obviously embodies his vision by tackling social and political reality from which an open ended decadence is resulted. The main aim of the present research is to explicate iconoclasm as a salient postmodern zeitgiest in Ferlinghetti's volume entitled A Coney Island of the Mind.