Louis Simpson, At the End of the Open Road

Jiri Flajsar (Palacky University Olomouc)

Ed. by Justin Parks, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway
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 1963

Places

Jamaica (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Although American poet Louis Simpson (1923-2012) published twenty books of poetry, the best-known of these is still the fourth, At the End of the Open Road (1963). The volume’s visibility is a result of its topical criticism of postwar suburbanization and consumerism, its radical departure from the academic formalism of his earlier three books, and by the fact that the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964, securing Simpson’s reputation as a major American poet.

The title refers to a poem by Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”, in which the nineteenth-century pioneer of modern American poetry suggests that the young sever old affiliations and pursue a new frontier:

AFOOT and …

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.

2280 words

Citation: Flajsar, Jiri. "At the End of the Open Road". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 December 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6480, accessed 25 April 2024.]

Save this article