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1

“Prisoners of the Earth, come out”: Links and Parallels between William Burroughs’s Writing and Gnostic Thought

100%

Białkowska A.

Anglica Wratislaviensia

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2018

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issue 56

23 - 34

EN

William Burroughs’s works are rarely read in relation to any religious context. I would like to present a correspondence between the vision that emerges from his Nova Trilogy and some of the most popular Gnostic ideas. In the cut-up trilogy, mankind is left alone, trapped in a hostile cosmos ruled by antihuman forces. Through the manipulation of words and images, Demiurge-like agents spread their control over an illusory reality. Like Gnostics, Burroughs envisions the physical world, and also the body, as a prison to the transcendent spirit. To him, one way of escape is through cut-ups. The writer shows that by breaking away from arbitrary notions and a routine mode of thinking, one can attain gnosis — saving knowledge. Burroughs creates his own mythology which, like Gnostic teachings, promotes the ideas of self-knowledge, internal transformation and transcendence.

2

“Writing is Fifty Years behind Painting” – William S. Burroughs and the Arts

100%

Białkowska A.

Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature

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2020

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issue 1

93-108

PL

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), one of the most controversial American writers of the 20th century, is an example of a "total artist", who does not limit himself to one genre or medium. He is best known for being an experimental writer, the co-creator of the avant-garde, "cut-ups" technique - a variant of collage. His cut-ups, however, were not limited to literature, as he was also the author of musical recordings, experimental videos and various visual art projects. These were collaborative undertaking that the artist carried out with his friends - mainly with Brion Gysim (painter), Ian Sommerville (electronics technitian and computer programmer) and Anthony Balch (film director). This article discussed William Burroughs' lesse-known works like, The Third Mind, As Pook Is Here, and The Book of Breeething as they are multi-media, interdysciplinary projects, created with the help of popular painters or illustrators, e.g. Bob Gale or Malcolm McNeil, and best demonstrate Burroughs' unconventional approach towards collaboration and the crossing of boundaries between different forms of art. The article also briefly comments on Burroughs' final decision to turn to painting and his eccentric "Shotgun Art".

3

Anihilacja „dogmatu płci” jako droga do ostatecznej emancypacji „homosapa”, czyli gender według Williama Burroughsa

81%

Barłowski D.

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2018

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vol. 12

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issue 2

81-95

EN

The article presents a thorough analysis of William S. Burroughs’s gender theory. In the first part of the text, the author characterizes Burroughs’s standpoint in the fields of literature, art, popculture, and the university. In the second part, the author explains how Burroughs understood the category of sex and gender. The third part is devoted to the way gender is represented in Burroughs’s novel The Wild Boys; in the fourth one, the author presents Burroughs’s conception of “queer” and shows how it corresponds with gender theories of radical feminists. The author concludes by emphasizing most important connections between Burroughs’s vision of sexuality and gender.

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1 Anglica Wratislaviensia

1 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature

1 Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne

1 2020

2 2018

2 Białkowska A.

1 Barłowski D.

“Prisoners of the Earth, come out”: Links and Parallels between William Burroughs’s Writing and Gnostic Thought

“Writing is Fifty Years behind Painting” – William S. Burroughs and the Arts

Anihilacja „dogmatu płci” jako droga do ostatecznej emancypacji „homosapa”, czyli gender według Williama Burroughsa