Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (Vol. 111) - Gregory Stephenson (essay date 1990)

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Gregory Stephenson (essay date 1990)

SOURCE: "The 'Spiritual Optics' of Lawrence Ferlinghetti," in The Daybreak Boys: Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation, Southern Illinois University Press, 1990, pp. 139-153.

[In the following essay, Stephenson describes the visual imagery recurring in several of Ferlinghetti's poems and plays, and in the novel, Her. He suggests that Ferlinghetti believes man to be fragmented by the opposing forces of love and power.]

     The Sun's Light when he unfolds it
     Depends on the Organ that beholds it.
 
                         "What is Man?"—William Blake

     The Eye of man a little narrow orb,
     clos'd up & dark,
     scarcely beholding the great light,
     conversing with the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John William Corrington (essay date 1965)
   2. James A. Butler (review date Spring 1966)
   3. Alex Raksin (review date 4 September 1988)
   4. Patrick Burnson (review date Fall 1988)
   5. Michael Leddy (review date Autumn 1989)
   6. Gregory Stephenson (essay date 1990)
   7. Tony Curtis (interview date Summer 1992)
   8. Larry Smith (review date September 1995)
4. Further Readings
5. Copyright