Jack Kerouac, Book of Dreams

Tanguy Harma (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1960

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)

Resources

Book of Dreams is an experimental piece of writing by Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) composed between 1952 and 1960, a time period corresponding to the most productive years of his career. Written as “a private dream diary with no intention of publication” (Charters, 1999, 327), it consists of a series of short sequences of variable length (anywhere between one line and three pages), which record Kerouac’s own dreams in written form. Each sequence sketches the narrative of one specific dream – an elastic dream-sequence containing vivid imagery, rich action and sharp sensations written in present tense. These dream-sequences are freely associated with no tangible relation from one to the other; they …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2508 words

Citation: Harma, Tanguy. "Book of Dreams". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 November 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6272, accessed 24 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article