Anabasis Kalikanzaros

Căsuţa Alăturată

2011-10-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

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Nu; nu sunt; cum? cum poate fiecare;

şi numai când nu mai poate, nu când

poate sau ar putea îndrăzni toate, nu.

Toată, Viaţa-le toată ars strecurată.

La sfârşit nu îşi smulg dinţii şi limba, o

vizionare gratis pentru fiecare, clipul

cu dinţii tăi şi limba ta puşi în borcanul

cu eticheta uitare, aura tăcerii şi aurul

nevolniciilor neştiute ca atare, fiecare

eviscerat de îndoieli, neputinţe dulci şi

infertila spermă a gândirii târâitoare pe

sub cadavrul respiraţiei cumulatoare,

toate convergent zvârlite neostoit în

căsuţa alăturată, cernobîl fără pată.

“cu cine, cu cine, cu cine, cu cine,

cu cine? cine?” canalia cu clişeul.

“de ce, de ce, de ce, de ce, de ce?”

arhetipuri,stereotipuri,clișee zmee

:) :)) :-) :=)) :P :D :))))))))))))))

“futu-ți neamu’ mă-tii de păcălici!!!

de ce,de ce,de ce rîzi de pleznești

în căsuța alăturată fără să-ţi pese

de orice alte comentarii? în căsuţa

alăturată urli doar tu chiar de zici că

şi noi, toţi noi, căsuţă aia alăturată…

e plină de radiaţii, radiaţile ce converg

toate dinspre noi, radiaţiile de care

vrem, încercăm, reuşim mereu să

scăpăm noi, radiaţiile noastre albastre,

radiaţiile sangerând negre, negre,

adunate toate în căsuţa alăturată,

nu intrăm în ea deşi’i a tuturor, este,

a noastră, căsuţă alăturată, curată.

Ce, de ce cauţi tu în căsuţa noastră

curată cruntă canalie desfigurată!?!”

aţi aflat un răspuns? nu? nu-i nimic:

sunteţi în siguranţă, să fiţi sănătoşi,

iradierile lăluntru’vă nu vă vor atinge,

iradierile cauzale sunt şi vor fi mereu

în siguranţă în căsuţa alăturată, unde

eu îmi eternizez cotangent respiraţia

deconfigurată – canalie glazurată sunt.

canalia fără dinţi molfăie mută clişeul,

clişeul, clişeul, clişeul, clişeul, clişeul,

meu, tău, lui, ei, nostru, vostru, lor,

canalia zgârie, sfârâie, hârâie, mârâie,

cârâie, bârâie, târâie, toate, clişeele

noastre ductile prelinse în hâde radiaţii

futile, fertile monade căsuţei alăturate,

borcanul poate fi spart, dar dincolo de

orice se poate întâmpla, nu, nu, nu

dărâmaţi zidurile căsuţei iradiate.

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Exit

2011-10-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

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Am avut un vis.

familia pe dealuri

pline de viţă de vie,

umblam pe umbra lor

cum doar în vis poţi umbla,

cu aripi, fără inerţia mersului pe jos.

un lac, undeva în vale, privit din

toate unghiurile.

încercam sa înţeleg

mă învarteam în jurul lui…

Locurile erau grele,

eu la fel, încărcat

de negură.

Eram plin

de locuri goale în minte,

era ca un ramas bun în

aer, o despartire.

de locuri, de voi.

m-am trezit in bucuresti,

un troleu. singur. noaptea.

hohote de tăceri ieftine

îmbracă o scurta existenţă,

gluga uitării acoperindu-mi

jocurile verzi. ca mereu,

o pagină scrisă, uitată

într-un scaun, fără ţintă.

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* - * - * - * - * Nemântuire * - * - * - * - *

2011-10-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

*

Hârtiile pe care se poate Scrie,

Nu conţin nici Idei nici Erezie,

Nu conţin Sînge, nici Patimi,

Nu conţin Dor, nici Lacrimi,

Hârtiile pe care se poate Scrie

Nu conţin Necuvinte sau Magie,

Ele te conţin deja pe Tine

Proaspăt Cosit Cailor Otavă,

Tu Neştiind.

Poezia nu se trăieşte,

Se moare,

Poezia nu se grăieşte,

Se doare.

Poezia nu e scriere,

E uitare,

Poezia, e dorinţă

Nu stare.

Nu puneţi

Mâna pe

Poet;

Că’l

Doare.

Poet

Puneţi

O Cruce;

Când

Moare.

Salutare

sinaxar antipoetic // xin vs temudjin

2011-10-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

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*

You pinned the right point. As you usually do.
Kitsch is the secret. And equally the salvation.

Beautiful Inside by Lina Kulikauskaite

I-am scos cadrul foto cu Poetul Gonflabil-Omul Balon mai albastru decât cerul albastru pe care se profila. Se potrivea prea bine cu ritmul alienării din text. Inserţia duală era atât de sincronă încât ambele se interpenetrau într-un întreg compact până la a cădea în neutru. Trebuia să ciobesc oleacă din colţul cercului ca să redevină savurabilă aroma amară şi străină sieşi a călătorului static. Ergo, am tras cu praştia în contruparea imaginii de ansamblu alegând cea mai futilă umbră a utilităţii de susţinere circumtextuală. De-abia ulterior am putut exanguina succesiv textul şi textul, libaţia ta şi purgaţia mea, primum şi secundum, până la senzorialul atavic, dar în exteriorul stării de poezie retrăită. Dincolo de asta … putem afirma că dacă prima scriitură este exhaustiv A TA, iar a doua compilativ A MEA, aceasta din urmă ESTE A NOASTRĂ întrucât ciopleşte spiritul transgresiv al poemului, aşa cum l-ai trăit tu treptat şi simţit eu dintr-odat’ … fără a putea vreunul captura ESENŢA. Bun. Am reîntors Daimonul In Nuce; da, şi? M-am trezit că Întregul era PREA compact acum, dur şi mat ca o frântură de bazalt, dar care … plutea. Na’ţi-o frântă că ţi-am dres-o! Trebuia o ancoră dar nu scriptică. Aş fi (desigur) mânjit coloristic nuanţa perfectă de negru orice aş mai fi pus în plus, iar faţa de fiţă mascată a paraşutei de carnaval veneţian ar fi devenit chiar inutilă. Şi m-aş fi întornat de unde-am plecat: textul tău, textul meu. Trebuia ceva care să poată reţine gândul cititorului în chiar miezul însingurării pe măsură ce citea. Deopotriva imagine şi sunet! Asta E! Am purces la vânătoare de punct final vizual luptând să elimin din capul locului ceea ce subconştientul îmi dicta: ceva comun nouă, ceva speculativ asortat zilei cârtiţei, ceva care să încurajeze prezenţa taumaturgică a oricărui comesean mirean la cina veşnic repetatei zile opace îngheţată în stare de cei trei oficianţi: Tu, Eu, Noi. Ş’am căutat dragă mongol ascuns, vo 3 ore prin vo 200 şi mai bine video-clip’uri ca imbecilul, pentru a mă reîntoarce spăşit la ceea ce era atât de vădit potrivit din prima secundă post scriptum încât aruncasem stupefiat Arcul şi Săgeţile evidenţei:

“Honeysuckle Rose”

- Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grapelli

& The Quintet Of The Hot France – 1938.

Se Potrivea şi Suna în timp ce Citeam tăcut :)

Cam asta e.

See Ya
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Cerculi Ars Commentaria

2011-10-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Cartografi misterioşi menindu-mi muşcări egeene, mişcări galileene, monoxile dospind post abjurare umbra inchiziţiei spânzurată flasc de tardivul mit Galileo.
Un
ieri
arzând,
rugul alb
dansând cu
cerul, eu visând
cu Giordano Bruno,
flăcările negre suind
nepăsarea spre zorii
solitari în exersări de
sumo. Privesc neatent
cum face trupul uman faţă
miticului hiatus al incinerării:
Veşnicia devine un tatami
pe care stârvul câştigă
prin ippon eliberarea,
neputinţe dizolvate
în cenuşa gălbuie
aşteptând urna
resemnate.
Hades şi
Hecate
Râd.
Oameni cartografiind misterios meniri mişcătoare, ascunzând ud galileismele frânte în drojdia ridicării alene spre soare, inchizitorial legănând gol peniană mistificare.

Décomposition de Précis

2011-10-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

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{ [ A veces mis pequeños demonios, me pregunto: "¿Por qué insistir en que se presente?" Puedo ver la sorpresa, oculto en los ojos de fuego. Y estoy sonriendo como un padre educado. Mis demonios siguen siendo sorprendido, y yo...simplemente decir: Aqui. ] – Ravenis Kalikanzaros }

{ “I’d like to see All Art Form Popping as an equivalent number of cheap soap bubbles, for real, so suddenly that we’ll have to let a time volume to engulf us in order to get straight the point, to feel the noisy silence of our empty surroundings, to feel, every single one of us, that we dilate on the edge of exploding due to our own inner emptiness, more, more, Moooore, so much that we would KNOW much more than our certified incoming Death, the horrible MISS of THIS something being THE Nec Plus Ultra of ALL our Lives: ART. And THEN, only then, We, The … bipeds, we will have The Right to organically feel the Ultimate URGE in gaining AGAIN the Huge Honor to Reinvent and Have Upon us ART, ART, ART, ART, ART… ART… No Matter What!!!” - Kalikanzaros Chtonogenetou [ "Anabasis Kalikanzaros" by XXM ] }

{ [ Temudjin Borkchu: " - That Xiron is A Damn Bastard! Someone who stold my mind and a third one's body to do Baaad-BAD Things to Inocently Smiling Gurlz! ... Who Am I ? I don't know...he stold my mind...! " ]

[ Xiron Xin Marian: " bulshit... I don't own a house, a home, not even a room, therefore I don't have to be polite; Im kind to Nothing, I luv'it literally - being forever unfractured warmly intrigued about it; as a trickster Im always pissing on the very roots & foundations of Any kind of wall, as a kalikanzaroi I straightly try to put'em down physically; strangulation is good exclusively in creative sex; sufferance is essential as a counterpart of the "mighty" self; i like to fear publicly; loathing can sometime be my second nature only if redirected toward myself; I do not know what is that "civilization"; I LUUUUV Solitude; I can't say I have enough friends in order to understand the need to hate'em; I equally LUUUUV to give anyone the God Given Right to became my enemy; I don't go to church, mosque or temple - I try to build those inside people souls; I don't give a fuck about those resembling me; I've never been zoon politikon - why starting now (or ever as a matter of fact). So YES I Do: I Do Understand U ... and I wonder what I would'it be IF by laxitude I would'it build such walls." ] [ "Anabasis Kalikanzaros" by XXM ] }

{ [ Xiron Xin: " - As flesh I am weak; as spirit I am weak; Then ... What am I ? I am human. Therefore, my doubt is the very point where i can wash away my soul's dark joints and rise as a balanced vessel of a new step in my becoming. But Even Doubt Doubt Me. Doubt is My Stranger, My Hunger, My Bread, My Oblivion. Doubt means My Lord, My Tyrant, My Saviour, My Murderer, My Child." ] …

[ ... " - Sincer... Nu am cum să-mi fiu Lumină; necum luminător. Dar Voi sunteţi. TOTI îmi sunteţi! Fiecare cumva, cândva, câtva, în varii momente când simt nevoia să decrochez, să decolez, să-mi iau câmpii, lumea în cap şi capul în traistă, momente de însingurare când evit de justesse OD'ul, Autodafe'ul şi Perigeul existenţei mele asa cum o ştiu, sau o ştii, sau o ştie cine, cum, cât o ştie, momentele ACELEA numai ale mele pentru că mi se intamplă mie ca o orgie de minuscule glisaje personale, momentele de gânduri, stări, zile, nopţi, nedormite, nemolcomite, nealduite de puţină hodină, un bob zăbavă, un fir de blândeţe, momentele când simt nevoia să-mi iau TOT ce mi-aş putea lua, doar pentru a mă opri o secundă din cavalcadă. Pentru prezenţa celor care işi fac loc în gandurile şi haosul meu fracturând fiecare în felul său hulpava mea sălbăticie. Pentru Asta.Vă Mulţumesc Umil Fiecăruia În Parte şi Deopotrivă Tuturor. Tot sincer, habar n-am când apare, când dispare, cât ţine tipul ăsta de umilinţă. E atavic ludică doar tristeţea blândă cu care o descoper între zone reacţionale non-referenţiale atinse deopotrivă de atavicul ludic şi tristeţea blândeţii. " ] one of THEM insert in “Anabasis Kalikanzaros” – 14 May at 04:16 }

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Kerouac Vrac – studiu retroinductiv

2011-10-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

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Cât să fi rânjit Jack, Neal şi Allen, după ce privind sub o frunză spălată în sânge,
ar fi descoperit chiloţii murdari ai dictonului

“Nimeni nu’i profet în ţara sa” ?

Cum ar arăta astăzi

MANUALUL ESENŢIAL
PENTRU LECTURA
UNEI EDIŢII ORIGINALE

KEROUAC

de preferinţă şi referinţă

“On The Road“

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- netraducere din limba engleză - xiron xin

■Bad book, December 21, 2001, - By “me” (Philadelphia, Pa USA)

I think that this book was not that great. I am sure that Jack Kerouac has written better books but this one was pretty bad. If I didn’t have to read it I wouldn’t have. And I don’t really recommend it.

This story was really strange. The way the book was set up was horrible too. They had five parts to the book and within the five parts they had different chapters. In one chapter they would tell you about something that happened in one year and then skip ahead to like 2 years after that. Then it would go back to like 3 years and then move back to the year they skipped. The plot of the story was really dumb too. I mean who wants to read about a road trip that was so strange? The charters that Mr. Kerouac has in his book were based on the was people were living at the time. They were from the beat generation and they did things their way. Most of the things in this book are about drugs and sex. While when this was written these were very sensitive subjects to talk about, let alone publish. As of now though, none of that phases anyone. As much as most young people like to read about things like this, most young people I have talked to did not like this book. I think this book was really bad and I do not recommend it.

■I don’t get it…, March 1, 2006, - By ”pkstill” (whitmore lake, michigan USA)

I absolutely hated this book and virtually every character in it. My whole book club, made up of women in their 50’s, hated it. I can’t imagine how it’s become a classic; my only thought is that it’s gotten that reputation after being read and reviewed by drunken, drug-crazed fraternity boys. There isn’t a likeable character in the whole bunch. Dean, the one everyone seems so drawn to, is clearly manic, possibly even psychotic. Even though I skipped whole sections, what I did read was a horrible waste of my time; I never would have read as much as I did had it not been for the book club.

■Beat Style Tedious and Without Purpose, November 29, 1999 - By “Tinny Bibb” (Mobile, AL)

This novel is interesting, but I found the style to be tedious and unsophisticated to no real end. While many may enjoy the romanticism of the life of these vagabond writers, I find the beat philosophy–both literary and personal–amazingly misguided. Rebellion against society, especially one as oppressive as 1950s America, is noble, but it must be marked by some true insight. The Beat rebellion, I believe, is summed up by the anecdote that Keruoac refused to wear a tie and jacket to his readings. Clothes do not a movement make, and this is certainly no real rebellion.

■Earth shatteringly stupid – for the sophmoric pseudo-philosopher seeking false authenticy, May 17, 2006 - By Indigenous wise man “Speak Big Words” (Rock bigger than me in ocean)

This book belongs to a sub-genre of bad American writing best labeled “beat off books”. (the many votes declaring my review not to be useful suggests that people would like more details, but since this is, in fact, a beat off book, I’m not sure that it merits extended treatment -all puns intended)

■This is your brain on drugs, January 10, 2000 - By “Kim”

An excruciating read. The only scene in the book worth any merit was the scene in the jazz club. Kerouac was a conservative that wanted to see how the other half lived. I am tempted to say his cognitive dissonance played a major role in his alcoholic downfall. If you walk the walk, talk the talk.

■Probably not the best use of your time, August 8, 2001 - By “Matthew Gunia” (Justice, Illinois)

With nearly 300 reviews for “On the Road”, I figured one more can’t hurt. One of my favorite teachings of our Savior, Jesus the Son of God, is that we shouldn’t worry about the future or where we’re going to live in ten years or what how we’re going to find something to eat or will my boss get mad at me, etc. etc., because our Father in Heaven is looking out for us. A sparrow can’t fall from the sky without the knowledge, moreso, the will of God. And what is more important in God’s eyes, a sparrow, or man, who was created in God’s image? Why do I refer to the Bible? Because above is the main theme of the book, as expressed (secularly) by Dean Moriarty. However, while Jesus used this example to illustrate God’s love and encourage Christians to focus on serving God and helping others (not worrying about money and such), Sal and Dean use it as an excuse of sorts to be irresponisble, hard-drinking, sex-driven guys on four very impressive road trips. As Dean says, it’s silly to worry because whatever you do or whatever happens to you, everything is going to turn out just great. While the hedonism displayed in the book is not exactly my favorite aspect of it, the book also has other qualities worth discussing. The pace of the book is interesting. Kerouac tends to use a quick pace when important or painful events are discussed and omits emotion and detail (e.g. Lee’s wife overdosing, a bar fight in Colorado), but other, seemingly less signifigant details are emphasized (e.g. the opera seen in Colorado, the nature of grapes in Southern California, the all-night debate between Moriarty and Carlo Marx). It serves two points: it keeps with the themes of finding pleasure and tries to show that even the seemingly earth-shattering events in one’s life are just part of the flow or continuing story. I ramble on. I think the book might be worth a read if you’re interesting in reading about the exploits of the above mentioned men or if you’re interested in the above mentioned theme. However, if you’re looking for descriptions of places in America or something along those lines, don’t bother. I found this book only moderately worth reading.

■Drivel driven by more drivel, August 30, 2005 - By “Darth Vader” (Aylett, VA)

This book was almost impossible to read. Not really sure how this is such a classic. Did not get through this book (gave up after 50 or 75 pages with nothing go on that was worth my time). So many good books to read, but this is not one of them. Drivel, drivel, and more drivel. Not really literature. But guess what, my opinion won’t do anything to change people’s minds, so whatever!

■Big waste of time, October 3, 2004 - By “heylady” (San Diego, Ca)

Jack Kerouac’s, On the Road, is a story about irresponsible people who drink, take drugs, steal, and treat women and children very poorly. This book has no redeeming value. I can place no importance on a book that devalues women and children. What I want to know is, who cares about the beatniks? Its been 40 years and the self indulgent amoral lifestyle they promoted has passed. Many of the “beats” are dead and the others have conformed. This is one of the few books that would serve everyone a lot better by being put in the circular file for good. If you want to waste you time read a People magazine or watch T.V. but don’t read this awful book.

■What’s the big deal?!?, October 16, 2009 - By “D. Meyers” (Grand Rapids, MI)

Touted as one of the classic pieces of literature of the 20th century, I was expecting more than ramblings of a group of Bohemian kids with little purpose in life. The point of the book missed me completely. Perhaps, it is because better stuff has been published since that time. Maybe you had to be there. As an icon to a decade, there was little in the text that was peculiar to that time. Furthermore, the author laid no foundation by portraying convential life in the 40’s, leaving no opportunity for the contrast to appear. The writing itself was poetic, rhymic, and at times creative. That rescued a star in my book. On the other hand, I wouldn’t waste my time with it again and I would really be ticked off if I had to read it as part of a college class.

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- ce înseamnă comentariul “recenzie” în spaţiul virtual?

Anyone Should Be At Least Once, A Failed Unlearner,
Trading For Free Whispered Words,
Void Strings , Creative Chaos, Onirical Sex,
knowing, that before being understood, all must
be forgotten and naturally passed over as a point of the path.
XXM
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Câţi dintre voi ar (mai) fi citit [ On The Road ]
dacă s-ar fi lăsat ghidat spre decizie
conform umorilor recenzale iscate
dintru/întru comentariile
“adevăraţilor” cititori americani?

“MIRIAPODO is a system for performing tasks asynchronously
on versioning system repositories
every time the system is triggered”
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Abrupt Fibula Hyperliterară

2011-10-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

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Neal Cassady and Charles Plymell 1963

Da, de o bună vreme în vest s-a subsumat en passant “Magia Aureorală A Beatnicilor” drept un episod închis al biosului literar, urmare discoerenţelor existente ab incipio în chiar hibele teoretice ale experimentalismului existenţialist.

Auto-asumat de corifeii săi drept Calea Adevărului Hâd

(un fel de “Însângerată Strălucire Pretutindenară A Expresiei” :D).

Da, de o bună vreme în vest s-a ales evoluţia multi-ritm pe un path aformic şi clar definit drept eliberare din decompresia căutată a neo-post-modernismului,

Da, în vest chiar

Se Scrie Altfel.

Aşijderea şi aici (ar trebui să) se scrie altfel.

Beatnicii pot fi cel mult savuraţi in memoriam dar e deja cam mult şi deja futil să-i mai şi inserezi valedictorian

( tu poetul, prozatorul, scriitorul ) drept crème de la crème a unei expresii personale imaginată drept reper

al timpului tău.

De acord cu asta.

Dar, excluzând fericita plurifragmentare vizual-afectivă încercată pe filieră vişnieciană, hondrariană, parţial cea cotarciană şi cele câteva neo-tipologii de inferenţă computaţională (din păcate încă de nişă) tupansiene, vighiene, areţiene, piţiene şi fară false modestii xiniene, auto-eructări literare din cutumă care chiar iniţiază o ”Departure” (la cei enunţaţi apare în diverse stringuri de expresie o eliberare din circumvoluţia formei ca principiu spinal imobil), ei bine, dincolo de asta, la cei care mai au câte Ceva de spus şi chiar ştiu să producă acest Ceva către exterior încă regăsesc plenar capcana glamour-existenţialismului experimentalist de care în mod pertinent aminteai (virus strălucitor şi cel puţin suportabil de altfel).

Nasol este că ”Mai” dincolo de capcana asta este ”doar” TOT restul marketului literar din România.

Am putea spune liniştiţi şi amar

”AM PUS’O !”

Kerouac and Cassady / Sal and Dean

Bukowski/Kerouac/Thompson/Ginsberg

Da hombre, strict asta se întâmplă ciclic şi invariabil predictibil ca’ntr-o putrida reutilizare a eternalului steak fixat în centrul mesei ce abia se mai ţine’n picioarele’i dezlânate spre diabolică îngurgitare’n pasca măsii de fiece cât de cât valoros preopinent literar micro-generaţional, actualizare a stagnării încai şi mai vicioasă prin persistentele laude şi acordări cu Brand-uri, Staples-uri şi Post’it-uri de genul celor amintite de tine astfel încât “invincibila epidemie de intrare pe calea cea bună” stârpeşte orice evoluţie diversificată a sinelui auctorial, atât de dens şi chtonogenetic la nivel de expresie că deja par a fi evadat din mintea celor atinşi TOATE posibilele eliberări din melasa asta călâie!!!

Futui’mânesa de treaba!!! de câte ori plec din ţară sper că vre’un seism synaptic dacă nu de grup măcar individual le va reda bucuria şi prospeţimea creaţiei libere bipezilor literaţi din arealul ăsta, speranţă mereu confirmată drept vană din moment ce la fiecare revenire aici redescopăr vibrând bine mersi ditai mlaştina “Celorlalţi” şi’n mijlocul ei cazanul cu puroi de diamante încare se’mbăiază liniştiţi “Ceştilalţi”.

Chestie monumentală care MĂ SEACĂ!!!

Este deopotrivă asta pe de-o parte, ca un excerpt al succesului vânat (dacă nu clişeic cel puţin ciclic predictibil) mai mult sau mai puţin facil dual aceptat de partem bellum – editura vs. scriitorul; şi, de cealaltă parte, un anumit atavism intelectual al românilor “in genere” şi al literaţilor “in esentia” – ceea ce duce constant la refugiul creator întru “repetiţia sigură a reţetelor consacrate” . (hidos concept!)

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- Shadow Catcher 1839 -

Neoalmoravid

2011-10-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

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Almoravid Warriors - XI-th century

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vizând o bulă anume de spumă prestidigitai

furcile verii molcom tetraedric aproape

năruind soliloquial prezenţe gri instant

ochii ţi s-au împiedicat în umbrire

hârtoape de gând ai început să

visezi flămând toate genunile

noastre comune deveneau o

spirituală minune sângele se

prăvălea în spirală unde’ar fi

trebuit să aflăm legea morală

deştele nopţii te împungeau scurt

în coaste căile nemaifiind albastre

ci proaste şi mai scurt te’ai trezit bula

tot acolo aştepta neplesnită însetarea

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PURPLE HAZE

PURPLE HAZE ALL IN MY BRAIN
LATELY THINGS JUST DON’T SEEM THE SAME
ACTIN’ FUNNY, BUT I DON’T KNOW WHY
‘SCUSE ME WHILE I KISS THE SKY

PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND
DON’T KNOW IF I’M CLIMBIN’ UP OR DOWN
AM I HAPPY OR IN MISERY?
WHATEREVER IT IS, THAT GIRL PUT A SPELL ON ME

YEAH!
PURPLE HAZE ALL IN MY EYES
DON’T KNOW IF IT’S DAY OR NIGHT
YOU’VE GOT ME BLOWIN’, BLOWIN’ MY MIND
IS IT TOMORROW OR JUST THE END OF TIME?

- “PUPLE HAZE” – Jimi Hendrix

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Angelogie Gregară Recurentă

2011-10-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

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[ Atât tendoanele titlului, cât şi venele textului, se referă doar extrem de lax la îngerii din pahare şi diavolii din noi. Nu. Nu este vorba despre Angelologie. Nope! Strict Angelogie, pen’ că se referă la Angelo Niculescu, magistrul temporizării. Rânjesc dar nu’i rictusul meu ci al temporizării mizerabile. Care temporizare în toate bântuie oameniii din juru’mi atât de intens încât mă seacă la blazare zvârlindu-mi’o'n uitare steril. Ştiţi şi voi cum e pri’mprejuru'vă când se’ntâmplă, aşa’i? ]

Dark Mood In Da Hood

“if los angeles had any rivers they would be made of cocaine”

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[ 04:55 GMT +2h

Excruciating Boringness

My Neverending Insomnia

2Pac Staring Through My Rearview ]

A venit cândva primăvara, venit, cum nu …

Ne-a tras un zâmbet curajos, a şoptit stins că lupta este cel mai frumos concept, după care, ajutată de florile ce-au murit, a purces înapoi la spitalul de oncologie-obstretico-psihiatrie: urma o nouă sesiune de citostatice. Norii pluteau nepăsatori, umeziţi orgasmic. Apoi a sosit canicula. Sănătoasă tun. Medicul Şef (care era şi General Manager) a zis ca i se rupe de amândouă – era ocupat cu disponibilizările de personal. Managerul Adjunct şi-a dosit crucea într-unul din vestiarele din stadionul-potcoavă, s-a schimbat iar la chip şi a plecat pe jos către noul pod cu hobane, fumând blazat un joint cât o rigla de 20. N-ar fi suportat să stea din nou lipit de parapetul vechiului pod, privind în arşita nopţii către triajul prăfuit, auzind tăcerea tribunelor goale, care nu mai erau de mult mărginite de uriaşa reclamă cu peşte oceanic. Directorul de resurse umane zăcea beat cui undeva în preajma Craiovei, aşezat comod într-o rână pe capra unei şarete uşoare dotată cu jante de Bentley şi loitre verzi, amuzându-se cu măsură de reuniunea complotistă a sclavilor brutarului chel. Toti ceilalţi medici puseseră de-un chiohan general de rămas bun la Sinaia, festivitate dedicată celor prinşi în disponibilizări, chestie sensibila şi utilă dealtfel, întrucat din moment ce nu se ştia clar cine pleacă, cine stă, măcar să savureze toţi o paranghelie ca la carte.

” – Ne-a luat Dracu! Da măcar să ne simtem bine înca odată” – fonfăia cu nasu’n borcanul plin cu secărică unul dintre doctori în timp ce-şi mângâia absent cu stânga penajul multicolor al aripilor şi neîncrezator cu dreapta aura.

Un altul căruia’i lipseau vârfurile penelor la aripa din stânga se opri din mângaiat propria aură ciobita şi pufni:

” -Aiurea! Nici dracu’ nu ne mai ia acu’! Nu vezi că ateii şi gayii s-au înmulţit sufocant, puzderie şi s-au mai şi dedat la H, P, E si yayo? Nu-i mai pasă nimănui că se duce de râpă totu’; de ce crezi ca a permis Şefu’ să fie capturată Credinţa şi pironită în lanţuri de vechiul debarcader de la Damboviţa subterană?!?”

” -Deci e-adevărat că sub canalul ăsta împuţit continuă să curgă adevărata Dâmboviţa?!?”;

” -Sigur; auzi… nu mai bine punem noi de-o clinică privată şi renunţăm la sportivi şi operăm direct pe artişti? adică poeţi, pictori, muzicieni, filozofi, chestii d’astea… ” ;

” -Nu; că p’ăştia îi păstrează Şefu’ că cică au suflet mult şi spirit adânc şi p’ormă’i mai lasă câţiva şi lu’ labagiu’ lui de adjunct; da’ la muzicanţi plebei dăia cu zburat de bancnote, cre’ că nu se bagă, putem încerca în zona asta” ;

” -Bine, aşa facem; auzi… da restu’ doctorilor?” ;

” -Mi se rupe, fiecare ce şi cum poate, în funcţie de trupeţii care’i primesc” ;

” – OK. Io m-am tirat, vii?” …

[ Era deja 06:06 GMT +2h.

Începea o nouă zi caniculară.

Managerul Adjunct cerşea mahmur tigări în gară.

De undeva de sus Managerul Şef scuipa plictisit:

“Gargară”. ]
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Andrei Ruse » Cu Ioan Es. Pop

2011-10-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

Andrei Ruse Despre mine Cărţi Proiecte online Clubul de Lectură

Cu Ioan Es. Pop

25.10.2011

Îmi doream demult să-l cunosc pe scriitorul Ioan Es. Pop, numai că nu știu cum naibii nu s-a ivitat niciodată ocazia potrivită. Îmi doream să beau o bere cu omul Ioan Es. Pop și să stăm la bârfe și glume, nu în ultimul rând îmi doream să-l aud citind la Clubul de lectură. Le-am reușit pe toate la un loc ( chiar mai multe, dacă e să ne referim la beri ), bonus o seară minunată de poezie, alături de Vlad Tăușance ( despre al cărui volum, Legende urbane, am scris aici ) și un public foarte cald. Am stat de vorbă despre Unelte de dormit, despre care am aflat că este “cartea unui călugăr care n-a găsit cui să se roage încă”,un volum care este diferit față de celelalte publicații ale lui Ioan, nu mai bun sau mai rău, ci exact “așa cum a fost să fie”. Pregătisem şi nişte întrebări oarecum incomode, care se pare că au deranjat pe alții prezenți, însă, nu și pe Ioan Es. Pop, care mi-a răspuns deschis și la sfârșit a ținut chiar să-mi mulțumească pentru că a putut spune acele precizări. Una dintre “dileme” se referea la faptul că a el a semnat în ultimul timp pe diferite volume ( pe care nu numai eu le consider ) de o calitate îndoielnică și am fost curios pe ce criterii recomandă anumiți autori sau ce anume a văzut la aceștia, iar alții, ca mine de exemplu, poate prea “cruzi” fiind, n-am sezisat talentul “ascuns”. După mai multe ezitări:

AR: Dumneavoastră ați refuzat vreodată pe cineva care v-a rugat să-i scrieți pe-o carte?

IEP: Probabil trebuia să începi cu întrebarea asta și scurtam totul.

Fiecare înțelege ce vrea. Iar volumele la care m-am referit nu merită menționate aici, în special pentru că n-am chef de comentarii injurioase din partea celor care nu înțeleg că a nu-mi place un anumit lucru, nu înseamnă că-i înjur de mamă, cum ei obişnuiesc de altfel s-o facă pe alte bloguri, fie cu numele asumat, fie sub anonimat (sau mai nou, anonimat dezvăluit “mai târziu”).

A doua întrebare a fost legată de declarația lui privind colaborarea cu securitatea, făcută anul acesta. Mai mult decât a declarat n-a spus, decât regretul încă o dată precizat, nu doar verbal, ci mai ales cel pe care l-am zărit în privirea lui, un regret care aproape m-a paralizat.

Ne-am cam “şpriţuit” spre sfârşit şi probabil am lungit-o mai mult decât trebuia (târziu mi-am dat seama că trecuse de 7 deja), aşa că am terminat Clubul cu un maraton de poezie între Ioan Es. Pop și Vlad Tăuşance, atât a lor, cât şi a unora dintre autorii lor preferaţi (Matei Vișniec, respectiv Mircea Dinescu, doar câteva exemple).

Apoi ne-am şpriţuit pe la mese şi am terminat cu câteva shot-uri de absint (nu mai ştiu exact când şi unde).

Mult mai multe fotografii (realizate de Livia Ștefan) găsiţi pe pagina de Facebook a eventului.

Mulţumiri celor care au venit şi îi / vă aştept şi data viitoare.

Vă las cu un clip,chiar dacă nu-i de la CDL,să gustaţi din Ioan Es. Pop.

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"Rock`n Roll Clichée"

2011-10-26T03:26:00.000-07:00

Kerouac Vrac - Full Text - Slot One

2011-10-24T04:33:00.000-07:00

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THE ESENTIAL MANUAL

FOR READING

AN ORIGINAL EDITION

“on the road”

by Jack Kerouac

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On the Road Summary

Jack Kerouac's On the Road is the defining work of the Beat Generation, a youth subculture of the 1940s and '50s that rejected the conformism of its time. It is a book of ideas and characters more than plot, and through the journeys of the main characters, the reader sees a picture of rebellious American youth and their attempts to subvert the cultural mandates they had been given in order to conform to white middle-class life. Kerouac's prose emulates jazz and the energy of the time. The book documents the four cross-country journeys of two friends, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty--the fictional alter-egos of Kerouac and the Beat writer Neil Cassady and their cast of friends, acquaintances, wives, and lovers.

The book begins with Sal relating how he came to know Dean. Dean had been released from a reform school prison and had come to New York to take part in its artistic and intellectual scene. Sal is enamored with Dean; he is a frenetic madman with a lust for alcohol, drugs, and women that is equally matched by his lust for living. Dean's energy sets off Sal's own desires for adventure and exploration, so after Dean returns to his hometown of Denver, Sal decides to set out on his own journey to meet up with his friends. Sal hitchhikes and takes buses to Denver, meeting an array of different characters. Many of these people are travelers as well, people who live in the impoverished and ever-moving world of hobos and hitchhikers.

Dean takes in the American landscape and the American West. In Denver he meets up with Dean and several other friends, and they spend their time partying, drinking, and doing drugs. As his time in Denver draws to a close, Sal departs for San Francisco to live for a while with his old friend Remi Boncoeur. Sal works a job as a security officer until his relationship with Remi deteriorates and he leaves San Francisco. On his way back to New York, he meets a Chicano farm girl, Terry, and they work in the cotton fields of California together for several months. Sal thinks he is in love and enjoys becoming a part of this marginalized culture, but the cold weather of winter eventually drives him back to his life in New York.

Sal's second journey begins as Dean drives from San Francisco to Virginia to pick him up at his family's house over Christmas. Driving Dean's Hudson car, they drive to New Orleans to visit Old Bull Lee, a mentor and drug addict who was taking care of the wife of one of Sal's and Dean's friends. They had abandoned the woman in a hotel on their way to Virginia, but she had sought them out through Bull Lee. The group drive through Texas and Arizona, stealing gasoline and food as they need it, until they finally reach San Francisco. Dean abandons Sal and his ex-wife Marylou in San Francisco to live with his current wife, Camille. Dean and Sal eventually meet back up, getting their "kicks" in San Francisco, visiting the African American jazz clubs, and drinking until dawn. Eventually Sal, wearied and broke from his travels, returns to New York.

The third journey begins with Sal in Denver. He has come to start a new life, but he finds that he is lonely and bored since none of his friends is there. He longs to be a part of the marginalized cultures he sees in Denver, to take part in the freedom that he believes their poverty and social status give them. Sal then decides to go to San Francisco to meet up with Dean and the rest of the gang. Dean had been trying to start a new, more domestic, life as well, but as soon as Sal arrives Dean's madness returns.

Dean's wife Camille kicks him out of the house, frustrated with his lack of responsibility for his children and family. Sal and Dean embark on another journey, this time declaring they will go to Italy. Their journey begins in San Francisco with a night of partying and jazz clubs with their old friends. They then catch a ride with a gay man from whom Dean tries to swindle money, and eventually they end up in Denver. In Denver, Dean's lust for young girls almost gets him shot, and the two spend a wild evening at clubs, doing drugs and getting drunk, and Dean begins stealing cars. He steals the wrong car, however, the car of a police detective, and they decide they need to get out of Denver fast. They find a man who wants them to drive his Cadillac to Chicago for him, and they eagerly jump at the chance. Dean drives the car wildly through the Midwest, often at over one hundred miles per hour, and they drive from Denver to Chicago in seventeen hours, an amazing and reckless time for pre-interstate America. In Chicago, Dean and Sal again party and visit the jazz clubs of the town before catching a ride to New York. In New York, Dean meets another girl at a party, Inez, and she becomes pregnant by him. Their trip to Italy never happens.

The fourth and final journey is not a trip West but a trip South. Sal sets out on his own this time to see Mexico, leaving Dean and Inez in New York. But Dean catches Sal in Denver and, with a friend named Stan Shephard, they take off for Mexico together in an old Chevy car that Dean bought with the last of his savings, abandoning his new child and lover in New York. Dean's alibi is that he wants a cheap Mexican divorce from his second wife, Camille. They drive through Texas and cross the Mexican border. They are enthralled by the culture and freedom that Mexico offers. They are set on getting to Mexico City, but along the way they stop in several small towns. In one, they meet a guide, Victor, who gives them drugs and takes them to a whorehouse where they have sexual encounters with underage girls, all for very little money. The police do not care, and the culture gives them the freedom that they had always desired in America. In the mountains of Mexico, they encounter the natives of the land and marvel at their impoverished and simple way of life. In Mexico City they find what might have been a kind of Beat haven, but Sal gets sick with dysentery, and Dean leaves him there. When Sal is well enough, he leaves Mexico City and returns to New York where he finds that Dean, having married Inez, has left her and the child to return to his second wife Camille in San Francisco.

The book ends with Dean traveling to New York to see Sal and Sal's new partner. Sal, despairing over the mess and trouble that such a mad and free lifestyle of travel has brought him, nonetheless remains inspired by Dean's madness. This time, however, he cannot follow Dean back to San Francisco. It is the last time that Sal ever sees Dean. As the novel closes, Sal sits by the bank of a river, thinking of the great American landscape that he has seen in his journeys, and thinking of Dean.

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Study Guide for On the Road

On the Road Summary

About On the Road

Character List

Glossary of Terms

Major Themes

Summary and Analysis of Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Summary and Analysis of Part 1, Chapters 5-10

Summary and Analysis of Part 1, Chapters 11-14

Summary and Analysis of Part 2, Chapters 1-6

Summary and Analysis of Part 2, Chapters 7-11

Summary and Analysis of Part 3, Chapters 1-5

Summary and Analysis of Part 3, Chapters 6-11

Summary and Analysis of Part 4, Chapters 1-4

Summary and Analysis of Part 4, Chapters 5-6, and Part 5

The Cultural and Social Influence of Kerouac

Related Links on On the Road

Suggested Essay Questions

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About On the Road

Jack Kerouac's On the Road can be considered among the most important novels of the twentieth century. It holds a great deal of historical significance, showing an underbelly of American culture full of sex, drugs, and lost youth, a culture that received little public attention during the 1940s and '50s. The novel documents a time in America when a post-World War II sensibility began to take over the general consciousness. Conformity and normalcy had become standards of the time after the upheavals of wartime. On the Road, however, showed the rest of America a culture it barely knew existed. The publication of On the Road in 1957 cemented the "Beat Generation" as an undeniable and important phenomenon. The Beats sowed the seeds of discontent in the youth of America that would grow into the radical movements of the 1960s and '70s. No writing of the time better characterized this generation than On the Road. The travels documented in On the Road were fictionalized yet based on real travels that Kerouac took with his friend Neil Cassady. Their journeys document a period in history in which America grew into its new status as the political, financial, industrial, and technological leader of the world-with some resistance. As soldiers returned home from war, family and jobs took on great importance once again. This was the era of upward mobility and the company man. The ideal male was, as of old, someone who would father children, settle down with a wife, and take one of the factory or office jobs proliferating in post-war America. Achievement in this period was classified as being able to rise to middle management and as raising children who conformed to the rules and sensibilities of the hegemonic culture. The pop culture of the time reinforced that culture through television programs including My Three Sons and The Donna Reed Show, and books like How to Win Friends and Influence People helped people gain success in their jobs. Politically, the world seemed to be torn between two Cold War extremes. The totalitarian authority of Stalin's USSR was clear on the left, while the repression of McCarthyism from the right was being given a pass by many citizens. The average American hoped to stay somewhere in the middle, out of the way and out of trouble, living in a culture where it could be dangerous to rock the boat. Kerouac's America, as depicted in On the Road, is a vastly different land. One could opt out of the political spectrum and even the traditional cultural norms in order to live a very different kind of life. America could now afford, within its borders, a youth culture distrustful of modernity and rebellious against notions of conformity. This alternative culture provided a new kind of diversity for America. It was concerned with experiencing a truer form of life than what younger people thought was characteristic of white middle-class Americans.

On the Road is thus a novel of ideas and characters more than plot. The novel follows the two main characters, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, the fictional alter egos of Kerouac and Cassady, as they make four journeys back and forth from New York to San Francisco. Along the way they struggle with ideas of race and class, permanence and impermanence, and the conventional life and conformity that were expected of young people who were to join the white middle class. Instead of safety, however, Sal and Dean see the looming threat of death and destruction in the promises of modernity and white America. Ultimately, this is a world that they are both running from and seeking salvation from. What culture can they develop in its place? Along the way, the reader is introduced to a vast array of characters, all seeking these same experiences and all living on the fringes of modern America. Through their parties, their drinking, their drug use, and their promiscuity, the reader follows a journey that explores this darker (if more free) opportunity in America-a part of America that was truly off the map.

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On the Road Characters

by Jack Kerouac himself

Character List

Sal Paradise: narrator and one of the main characters of the novel; lives originally with his aunt in New York; leaves on four different trips across the country with Dean Moriarty; the fictional alter ego of Jack Kerouac.

Dean Moriarty: main character; lives in San Francisco, but travels constantly back and forth to New York; a wild, mad character whose energy and craziness affect others, especially Sal; with Sal, drinks large amounts of alcohol, does a lot of drugs, and sleeps with a lot of different women, fathering four children by two different women; the fictional alter ego of Kerouac's friend Neil Cassady.

Carlo Marx: eccentric poet in New York; becomes best friends with Dean and Sal; the fictional alter ego of the poet Allen Ginsburg.

Old Bull Lee: writer and drug addict in New Orleans; has traveled the world; mentor to Dean and Sal; the fictional alter ego of William Burroughs.

Marylou: Dean's first wife and brief love interest of Sal.

Ed Dunkel: close friend of Sal and Dean; lives mostly in Denver and San Francisco; marries Galatea so that she will pay for his cross-country trip with Dean, then leaves her in a Denver motel.

Galatea Dunkel: wife of Ed; often left by him in difficult situations, but stays with him through the novel; the only woman not afraid of Dean--she gives him a piece of her mind.

Remi Boncoeur: friend of Sal's from prep school; Frenchman who lives in a shack in San Francisco; helps Sal get a job as a security guard; gambler and thief, but also often kind-hearted and settled in his life.

Lee Ann: Remi Bondoeur's girlfriend in San Francisco.

Sal's aunt: maternal figure throughout the novel; always willing to give Sal and Dean shelter and food at the end of their journeys; protects them in one scene by paying for a traffic ticket and keeping them out of jail.

Chad Gray: Sal's friend in Denver; interested in Indian culture and anthropology.

Tim Gray: Dean's and Sal's friend in Denver.

Roland Major: writer and friend of Sal's in Denver; patterns himself after Hemingway and is more acquainted with life's delicacies.

Camille: Dean's second wife; lives in San Francisco and fathers two of Dean's children; the final woman Dean goes back to at the end of the novel.

Babe and Ray Rawlins: brother and sister who live in Denver.

Elmer Hassel: Elmer never actually appears in the novel; he got lost in Times Square and was never seen again, though Dean and Sal always look for him when they are there.

Lucille: a brief love interest of Sal's; Sal believes he will marry Lucille, but he gets called to go on the road with Dean instead.

Terry: Chicano migrant worker Sal meets in California; Sal falls in love with Terry and spends several months picking cotton in the fields with Terry, her child, her family, and other migrant farm workers; Terry first symbolizes the purity Kerouac sees in marginalized cultures in America.

Slim Gaillard: jazz musician.

Inez: a woman Dean finds and lives with in New York; Dean has a child with Inez and leaves her to follow Sal to Mexico; after divorcing Camille, his second wife, Dean marries Inez only to leave her the next day to go live with Camille in San Francisco.

Stan Shephard: friend of Dean's and Sal's who accompanies them to Mexico City.

Victor: Sal's and Dean's friend and guide in Gregoria, Mexico; provides Sal and Dean with drugs and whores during their stay.

Eddie: hitchhiker Sal meets on the road; reminds Sal of his family in New York.

Rita Bettencourt: a girl to whom Dean introduces Sal.

Rollo Greb: beatnik scholar whom Sal and Dean greatly admire.

Hingham: friend of Sal's in Arizona.

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Glossary of Terms

Alcatraz: a former federal prison located on an island in the San Francisco Bay

Barracks: temporary housing

Beat: a term Kerouac coined that represents the lifestyle he and his friends followed during the 1940s and '50s, which gained enough traction that one can call this time in American history the Beat Generation

Beatnik: a person who lives the Beat lifestyle, characterized by voluntary poverty, loose sexual morals, drugs, alcohol, and intellectual freedom

Bebop: a type of jazz music

Benzedrine: a stimulant drug

Bohemian: a person who lives an unconventional lifestyle

Bookie: short for bookkeeper; a person who takes bets and pays money depending on the results

Caesarian: a form of childbirth in which the child is brought out of the mother through a cut made in her abdomen

Charge: a person in someone's care

Chicano: a person of Mexican-American culture

Coit Tower: an art-deco monument on top of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, California

Dilapidated: worn down, tired, deteriorating

Doldrums: a state of inactivity or stagnation

Dostoevski: a Russian novelist, considered one of the great writers of the 19th century

Embarcadero, The: the eastern waterfront roadway of the Port of San Francisco

Fellahin: (pl. fellaheen) a person from a marginalized culture

Frisco: short for San Francisco

Harangues: long, often pompous speeches

Highball: a glass tumbler used to serve alcohol

Hipster: someone influenced by jazz culture

Hudson: a popular brand of car in the 1940s and '50s

Hustle: a scam to steal money

Jalopy: a broken-down or ragged car

Jazz: an American musical style characterized by improvisation and unusual rhythms, made popular by African American musicians starting in the 1930s

Kicks: good times, good feelings, a party

Mann Act: a 1910 act that prohibits the transport of women for prostitution or immoral purposes

Okie: someone displaced from Oklahoma during the Great Depression of the 1920s; more generally, a poor white person

Pachuco: a subculture of Mexican-American youth in the 1940s and '50s

Patriarch: a man who holds authority over an extended family

Pimp: a person who finds and manages prostitutes

Route 66: a famous, historic pre-interstate highway that ran from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California

Shrew: a derogatory term for a woman, especially one with a bad attitude; a rodent

Sierra Madre: a Mexican mountain range

Tea: marijuana

Tenorman: a jazz musician who plays tenor saxophone

Travel Bureau: an office helping travelers and arranging rides for and among travelers

Truman: Harry S Truman, the thirty-third President of the United States (1945-1953)

W.C. Fields: an American comedic actor

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Major Themes

Friendship

Sal's and Dean's friendship throughout the novel reflects the buddy themes found in much classic and pop culture. They are two men sharing travel experiences. Their relationship is a part of the male bonding stereotype. Yet, what they have transcends a typical friendship. Through their adventures and travels, they become comrades and brothers. Dean's madness envelops Sal; Dean can make the mundane extraordinary for Sal.

Their deeds and misdeeds bond them together in a way that ordinary friendship rarely does. Friendship also plays a role in the Beat culture that Kerouac describes. It is only when Sal's group of friends are together that he can truly experience the kind of life they want to live. While living briefly in Denver without his friends, Sal quickly becomes sad and despondent at the lack of vitality in his life. He immediately leaves for San Francisco, where he once again can experience the community of madness that fuels the adventures of the book.

In On the Road, however, friendship is also a power that can destroy. Sal eventually sees his relationship with Dean as destructive. During their final journey he laments Dean's coming to take him to Mexico. Dean, and the subculture represented by Sal's Beat friends, come to represent the destruction of the traditional values of American society like family and relationship. This kind of individualist subversion is one of the themes of the novel, and Sal can sense that something is being lost by this destruction. During the final journey, Sal realizes that the destructive nature of this kind of friendship can have severe consequences for the people surrounding him and Dean.

The American West

The American West has long been a part of American literature and folklore. Going West to explore and to see the country retains its charm; most of the West remains much wilder than the East. The theme has been celebrated in American literature, notably in Walt Whitman's writing about "the road" in his poetry. On the Road deals with this sense of adventure and exploration in two main ways. First, there is the story of exploration. For Sal, the country and towns that lie before him represent new adventures. Through his first journey, Sal understands himself to be one in the long line of explorers and settlers who went West to find a new life. Sal mythologizes much of the American West during his trip. He sees the possibilities of time and existence in the Mississippi River, echoing other great American writers such as Mark Twain. In the Denver mining town he finds a sense of the Old West, a time of cowboys and dangerous frontiers. As he picks cotton with other migrant farm workers, he imagines himself to be a part of that culture and those who farmed and worked civilization into being in the American West.

Yet, the second sense in which On the Road deals with the American West takes a much sadder tone. In this way, the novel comments on and criticizes its times. Just a year before the book was published, in 1956, President Eisenhower had signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which formally began the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A plan for the system had been in the works since 1921, and this was just one of many signs that America was taming its West.

Sal realizes through the novel that though modernity and technology are bringing greater access to transportation and to places in the West, there are fewer and fewer places to be discovered. Sal confronts this reality as he visits the Wild West Festival in Cheyenne, a tourist attraction that can only simulate the real Wild West.

The mining town outside of Denver has also ceased to be a true part of the West, being now a part of tourist culture. Sal and Dean also feel a sadness for the Indian cultures of the mountains of Mexico, for they realize that the coming of a highway means the destruction of their culture. By the end of the novel, the reader begins to understand that any road that leads to the American West brings with it the potential destruction of culture even as it gives freedom to the traveler or tourist.

The Natural Man

For Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty represents true freedom. Dean's motivations and passions, often foolish and criminal to the rest of the world, represent for Dean the true expression of what it means to be young and what it means to be a natural man. While all of Dean's and Sal's friends consider Dean to be irresponsible and not to be trusted, Sal instead sees Dean's erratic behavior as the proof that Dean thinks and lives on a higher plane than the rest of the world does.

When Sal first meets Dean, we learn that Dean was arrested in Denver for stealing cars. Instead of a fault, however, Sal sees such criminality as the result of Dean's unending energy and his search for true joy. Throughout the novel, Dean's behavior is portrayed sympathetically. Kerouac suggests that Dean's actions are only the result of his quest for a pure life and that he cannot be held responsible for what the rest of the world may or may not view as criminal or irresponsible. Engaging in such behavior is the only way, as Sal and Dean see it, to find the true meaning of life, "It" as they call it, throughout the novel. For Kerouac, the body's natural appetites must take precedence over any legal or social ramification that might come about by indulging in them. Stealing cars, doing drugs, or engaging in sexual relations with underage women are only expressions of the natural instincts of men who seek to live true and natural lives.

Conflicts Between Male and Female Desires

The aspect of On the Road that has been most criticized in the decades following the novel's release has been Kerouac's portrayal of the relationships between men and women. While Kerouac himself was roundly criticizing the social structures of family and work that kept men from finding a truer way of life, his novel failed to record the plight of the women being subjected to the same pressures and conventions of society. More to the point, the characters seem unsympathetic to the toll that the women have to pay in meeting the appetites and helping with the travels of the men. For Sal and Dean, the women represent a force pushing against their hope for freedom. At the end of the men's journeys, women are there to feed and shelter these men, but they are never meant to actually participate in the men's journeys.

Women are routinely abandoned in the novel. Dean is married three times throughout the narrative. All three women he divorces and leaves with children and responsibilities of their own. Ed Dunkel marries a woman, Galatea, in San Francisco, whom he then abandons on the trip to New York when her money runs out.

Women are seen as disposable objects of these men's desires, as though there is no natural ethic, just an individual ethic of self-aggrandizement at the expense of others. It is only in the brief instances when the women tell Dean and Sal how irresponsible the two are being that we see any of the women's true feelings or needs; it is by no means clear, however, that Dean and Sal are interested in resolving the conflicts by helping the women get what they want.

Marginalized Cultures in the Americas

Throughout the novel, Dean and Sal are mesmerized by the marginalized peoples of the Americas, specifically through African-American culture and Mexican culture. As On the Road was being published, America was still a racially and ethnically diverse society that privileged whites of Western European descent. Soon to come were the tumultuous racial conflicts of the 1960s. As African Americans are beginning new struggles to become full citizens in their communities, Sal and Dean revel and see freedom in the very idea of being marginalized. To be marginalized is to be left alone to do what you want, and if you do not care to be involved in the dominant culture, all the better.

This notion is a twist on the idea that greater civil and social rights were needed for African Americans during this time. Kerouac does not specifically mention the need for greater equality, but through the character of Sal, Kerouac shows the value of attempts to take part in the marginality of a subculture. Sal and Dean see, through this marginality, a freedom from the constraints of the white male American culture that held many of their contemporaries. In the African American jazz clubs, they find a freedom of expression that they cannot find in their own lives.

During their trip to Mexico, they see freedom and adventure in the poverty of the Mexican people, not oppression. (Of course, Mexican culture itself is not marginalized in Mexico, but it seems to yield such a feeling among these outsiders, who see just a few slices and subcultures.) Sal's months of living as a migrant farm worker, picking cotton, are perhaps the best example of such a view in the novel. During these months Sal comes to see himself as Chicano, a part of the impoverished and marginalized culture in which he lives and works. Instead of feeling the oppression of the culture, he feels freedom in making only a dollar and a half a day, living with his Chicano lover, Terry, and taking care of her son.

But Sal and Dean never expect to stay forever in the conditions of such cultures. Through their travels they always return to the white American culture that they came from, finding food and shelter when they need it. Sal's comfort in the migrant farms of California, perhaps, comes from subconsciously knowing that if he ever needed it, his aunt in New York could wire him money to come home. This is a luxury the rest of the farm workers do not have.

Rejection of Authority

The life that Sal and Dean want to live is one that rejects all notions of authority and rule. Dean has little regard for the law and conventions of society. Authority is seen in the novel through the pleadings of the maternal characters for Dean and Sal to settle down and fulfill their responsibilities, and it is most clearly understood in the various run-ins that the group of Beats has with law enforcement. Anarchy in the individual eventually confronts the authority of society.

On every journey, Sal and Dean are confronted with the realities of law enforcement and the laws that they have broken. This is vividly seen in a stop in Washington on the day of Truman's re-election inauguration. As they watch the festivities, a parade of military vehicles rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue, a display of the military might of the country. For Dean and Sal this display is nothing they want to be a part of. They are stopped and harassed by Washington police when they speed and drive on the wrong side of the road. The police want to arrest Dean on the ground that Dean's wife, Marylou, is a prostitute and that Dean is pimping her across state lines. The authorities of the novel clearly disapprove of the lifestyle that these young hipsters are leading. Others can tell, simply from their looks, that these people are rejecting the authority of the nation and the pressures to conform.

It is only in Mexico that they find a large measure of freedom from authority (and nearly full freedom from United States authority). The police there encourage them in their exploits, guarding their whorehouse as they pay for sex, and letting them sleep in their car in town-which would have caused suspicion among American police. American society is thus condemned in Sal's eyes for its paranoia and its insistence on following rules. But in Mexico, where the rules are relaxed and people are only worried about getting by, one finds true freedom from authority (although, of course, there are things one may not do in Mexico).

The Rainy Night of America

Kerouac's "rainy night of America" is a theme taken up several times in On the Road and in his other novels. The rainy night comes to symbolize for Sal the motion of time in the country. It is most clearly seen when Sal visits rivers-first the Hudson, most notably the Mississippi, and then the river that takes up the final paragraph of the novel.

Kerouac compares the cycle of water, from rain, to river, to sea, to evaporation and then all over again, to the movement of time and culture. This is a metaphor for life and history. What has come before will come again and then start all over again. It is in these moments of reflection on rivers that Kerouac glimpses his own impermanence in the flow of life. Sal's and Dean's own travels begin to take on this kind of rhythm. The things that they do, the problems they face, and the messes they always find themselves in are all part of the cycle of the road. As Sal and Dean cross the Mississippi, he reflects upon the meaning of the river. It starts in secret and flows through the lands of America, only to reach oblivion in the sea. The river's cycle starts again in the rainy night. Kerouac saw his own life and particularly his life on the road in this metaphor.

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Part 1, Chapters 1-4

On the Road begins with the two main characters of the novel, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, meeting each other in New York after Dean has been released from reform school and he and his new wife, Marylou, have moved to New York. Dean is an eccentric and ecstatic character, a wannabe intellectual, who wants to learn to write from Sal and his group of friends in New York. After Dean and Marylou have a fight in which she reports to the police "some false trumped-up hysterical crazy charge," Dean moves in with Sal to Sal's aunt's house. The stay is short, however-Dean soon meets Sal's friend Carlo Marx and begins to spend all his time with him. Dean and Carlo become fast friends, and Dean becomes hysterically excited with life in New York, sharing intellectual ideas, writing, and chasing women. He does all this while working as an attendant at a parking lot, a job he undertakes with recklessness. Sal believes Carlo and Dean are mad but follows them because they are interesting. To Sal, Dean and Carlo are people who "burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles." Their intensity and, often, insanity drive Sal's curiosity and yield the definition of what it means to be Beat.

As spring approaches Dean leaves New York to travel back West. Realizing that his time hanging around his college campus needs to end and that he needs new experiences and ideas as a writer, Sal decides that later in the spring he will join his new friend Dean in his travels. In July of 1947, with fifty dollars in his pocket, Sal leaves New York for San Francisco. He decides to take Route 6 and hitchhikes to the road's beginning in upstate New York. After getting drenched in a rain storm, he hitches another ride back to New York, realizing that Route 6 doesn't have enough traffic to take him where he wants to go. He swears to be in Chicago by the next day, however, so he spends most of his money on a bus ticket to make sure.

After taking a bus to Chicago, Sal spends a day exploring the city before hitchhiking to Davenport, Iowa. Catching rides with a pair of truckers and a group of college boys from the University of Iowa, Sal ends up in Des Moines the morning, where he gets a cheap hotel room in which sleeps through the day. As he wakes at dusk, he has the distinct feeling that he does not know who he is anymore: "I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel ... I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else."

Looking forward to meeting his friends in Denver, Sal quickly leaves the hotel and hitches a ride with a new friend he meets, an enthusiastic New Yorker named Eddie who tells dirty jokes and reminds Sal of his cousin from the Bronx. Eddie and Sal hitch rides through Iowa and Nebraska and meet up with a cowboy who wants them to drive an extra car through Nebraska where he plans to meet his wife. Eddie drives, a little too fast, and after several hundred miles on the road and a stop at a roadside diner, Eddie and Sal hitch more rides into Shelton, Nebraska, where they get stuck.

After being solicited for work by a carnival owner, a Nebraska farm trailer going to Denver comes by and offers a ride to only one of the men. Without even discussing it, Eddie jumps on the wagon and takes off with a shirt Sal had let him borrow. Sal waits in Shelton until a young guy gives him a ride a hundred miles closer to Denver.

As chapter four opens, Sal gets the "greatest ride" of his life on a "flatboard" truck headed to Los Angeles full of hitchhikers: farm boys on their way to the harvests, high school kids hitchhiking for the summer, Montana Slim, Mississippi Gene and his charge, and boxcar hobos. Only a quick stop to eat and buy whiskey interrupts the drive into Colorado.

As they drink and laugh, playing practical jokes on each other while trying to urinate over the side of the truck, Sal and Mississippi Gene realize they have a common friend in a hobo named Big Slim, who "punches cows" in East Texas. Sal befriends Mississippi Gene and his charge and gives all his cigarettes to them. As Sal begins to get more and more excited about getting to Denver, they all continue to drink. They bundle up under a tarpaulin to keep from freezing in the cold Colorado night. When the truck reaches Cheyenne, Wyoming, Sal and Montana Slim jump off the truck to explore the celebrations of Wild West Week in the town.

Analysis

The first two chapters introduce the reader to the main characters of the novel, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. Sal, as a writer, is fascinated with interesting people and new experiences. Dean, spontaneous in his appetites for food, sex, drugs, and life, becomes a fascination for Sal and spurs his desire to travel. The opening chapters also present an overview of the lifestyle of the "Beat Generation." It is an ecstatic and stimulating lifestyle based on experiencing and living life, often involving sex and drugs. But it is also an intellectually stimulating lifestyle in which ideas and writing share primary importance. Dean and Carlo Marx share an especially deep intellectual kinship. As Sal prepares to begin his journey on the road, we see Sal as a character who is beginning to separate from his life as a student, a member of a working-class family, and a reclusive writer. Sal's aunt believes Dean is a bad influence but encourages the trip anyway. Sal becomes hungry for the lifestyle and adventures that he is sure his friends are having in the broad landscape of America.

Sal's initial mishap on his journey, choosing the wrong route, getting stuck in the rain, having to return to New York, and eventually spending most of his money on a bus ticket to Chicago, highlights his early naivete and eagerness to join the beatnik lifestyle. The reader will soon experience with Sal, though, a full immersion in the beatnik culture of America.

Chapters three and four introduce the reader to the sights and characters of the road as well as Sal's evolving character as he begins his journey. In several instances the reader is made aware of Sal's progression from an East Coast college kid into an example of the Beat lifestyle. Through chapters three and four Sal mentions that he only ate pie and ice cream during this first trip, an allusion to childhood choices. Eddie, the friend he meets outside of Adel, Iowa, reminds him of his family back East and gives him some comfort on the trip. In a cheap hotel in Des Moines, after crossing the Mississippi River (the gateway to the West), the first changes begin to take root in Sal's character. He wakes up in the hotel to find that he no longer knows who he is; he feels like a different person. While this transformation will continue to develop throughout this first cross-country journey, this moment marks a turning point for Sal from his New York life to his beatnik life.

As the trip progresses west, the characters begin to take on personalities that mirror the landscape. The Iowa truck drivers are loud and boisterous, and so is the cowboy in a diner in Nebraska. "I said to myself, Wham, listen to that man laugh. That's the West, here I am in the West," Sal says as he listens to the cowboy entertain the others in the diner. The reader also is introduced to the slowly fading culture of the Old West. As Sal pulls into Cheyenne, Wyoming, he is greeted by the Wild West Festival, a celebration that he sees as sadly trying to recreate a time that is already gone. Sal's fellow hitchhikers on the truck headed to Los Angeles also begin to represent the underbelly of a country Sal had not known in New York. Mississippi Gene and his charge are running from the law, and poor hobos cannot afford to buy food-they all contrast starkly to the diner full of pretty girls whom Sal sees at a stop in Colorado. As Sal continues on his journey to Denver, readers begin to see a segment of the American heartland who live on the fringes of society.

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Part 1, Chapters 5-10

Sal and Montana Slim begin bar hopping and partying with the other revelers at the Cheyenne Wild West Festival. Sal gets drunk and chases various women, spending all but two dollars of the seven he has left. After almost taking a bus to a middle-of-nowhere town in Colorado with a girl he picks up, Sal eventually starts to feel bad about the situation he has put himself in: almost broke, drunk, and tired. He finds a spot on a bench in the bus station and sleeps till the morning. When he wakes, Montana Slim is gone. Sal is ready to leave Cheyenne and the Wild West Festival.

He picks up a few rides outside Cheyenne and again begins to feel the excitement of getting to Denver. After a brief nap at a filling station, he finally catches his ride into Denver and arrives in the city at Larimer Street.

In Denver, Sal finds his friend Chad King, and Chad picks him up from the bus station. He finds out that Chad in no longer friends with Dean or Carlo Marx, both of whom are in Denver, and begins to feel pulled between the two groups (Dean's friends and Chad's friends). He goes back to Chad's house to take a nap and eat some food, but he is worried about finding Dean and Carlo.

In chapter six the reader begins to learn some of the history of Dean Moriarty. Dean was from Denver originally and had been raised on Larimer Street. His father had been an alcoholic, and at the age of six Dean had pleaded before a judge to set his father free from jail. He had begged for money on the streets of Denver and eventually started hanging around pool halls. After he "set a Denver record for stealing cars" he was sent to reform school.

Sal moves into an apartment owned by the parents of another Denver friend, Tim Gray, and begins to take part in the life of the city, visiting its bars, drinking, and meeting old and new friends. Eventually, Carlo finds out that Sal is in the city and tracks him down. Carlo and Dean are making big plans for their lives. Dean is getting a divorce from Marylou but still sleeping with her in the interim, all the while carrying on an affair with another woman. Both are doing a lot of drugs, Benzedrine, and staying up all night to talk.

When Sal arrives at Dean's apartment, Dean answers the door naked and excitedly decides he must take Sal out on the town to find a woman. They go to Denver's Mexican-town, where they find the house of some waitress sisters and begin a wild party. Eventually, they decide to take the party to Sal's apartment, but Sal's roommate, Roland Major, refuses to let them in. They decide to head back to the downtown night spots instead, where Sal eventually finds himself alone and finally broke, having spent his last dollar.

The Denver group begins planning a trip to the mountains. Eddie, Sal's friend from the road, calls looking for work. Dean takes Sal and Eddie to the markets, and they get offered a job working from four in the morning till six in the evening. The next morning, Eddie shows up for the job but Sal does not. Instead, Sal spends his days and nights visiting various parties all over Denver, listening to Carlo Marx's poetry in late-night reading sessions, and observing Dean. Carlo and Dean, the "amazing maniacs," spend hours and hours talking, staying up all night discussing random and varied topics and making plans to go to San Francisco.

Sal then takes off for a trip to the mountains with Babe, Ray Rawlins, and Tim Gray. At an old mining town turned tourist attraction, they fix up an old shack for parties, go to the opera, and drink. The group throws a big party at their shack. It eventually gets crashed by fraternity boys, so instead they hit the town bars, where Ray Rawlins gets in a fight. Outside, standing on a mountain's edge, they yells and howl into the night, in awe of the vastness of the landscape. As the group leaves the mining town, Sal begins to feel the urge to go with Carlo and Dean to San Francisco.

Back in Denver, Sal finds out that Dean and Carlo had been in the mountains the whole time he had been there. Dean gets Sal together with Rita Bettencourt, the girl that Dean had originally wanted to get Sal together with when they first met up in Denver. Rita and Sal have awkward sex and talk about what they want from their lives. Sal takes one last lamentable walk through the streets of Denver, picks up the money his aunt wired to him, finds the shirt that his friend Eddie had left with earlier in the journey, and buys a bus ticket to San Francisco. In a last-minute phone call, Dean says that he and Carlo might join him there. Sal realizes that the whole time he had been in Denver, he had not talked with Dean for more than five minutes.

Analysis

Chapters five, six, and seven introduce the reader more fully to the beatnik lifestyle that Sal and his friends try to live. Beginning with the Wild West Festival and continuing into Denver, the reader gets a sense of the kind of free-wheeling lifestyle that continues through the rest of the book: heavy drinking, drugs, multiple sexual partners, and other excesses are all available and are encouraged within the group. There is little thought of tomorrow. Dean offers to find Sal a job and comments that everybody is broke, but there is little worry about money. These first days in Denver set the tone for the kind of hedonist lifestyle Dean, Sal, Carlo, and the rest of the group seek out in the hope of truly living life to its fullest. They are days that are "filled with eminent peril," as Sal says, quoting W.C. Fields. Yet the peril is invited and enjoyed, not something to be afraid of.

Chapter seven also attempts briefly to show the reader the cultural lines that classify these beatniks. Sal's roommate, Roland Major, writes Hemingwayan stories about young Denver residents who become annoyed and despondent over the "arty types" of Denver. According to Sal, the point of the story is that "The arty types were all over America, sucking up its blood." The Beats, while concerned with intellectualism and writing, were not these "arty types." Instead, they sought to find and be a more real America, an America hiding behind the facade of popular culture and pretentious critics.

Chapters eight, nine, and ten deepen the frenetic and, often, insane lifestyle of Sal and his Denver friends. Sal continues to deal with his deepening involvement with this group on the fringes of society. He begins to even vaguely define what being a part of the Beats truly means. During his trip to the mountains he realizes that even among his Denver friends he is slowly becoming more like Dean and Carlo, being drawn into their dark and frenetic world. Sal describes Dean and Carlo as people of "gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America."

These chapters also continue to draw dividing lines between that "sordid" world of Sal, Dean, and Carlo and that of mainstream America. Central City, the mining town they visit in the mountains, becomes another emblem of how America is slowly turning into a tourist destination. Though Sal has the freedom to go wherever he wants, he finds fewer and fewer places worthy of exploration. While Sal and his Denver friends try to bring their life and insanity to this mountain town, ultimately, they find they do not have a place there, so they leave sad and hung over.

Sal also feels distress over the sad state of affairs between people-they are no longer able to communicate with each other because of the societal pressures being forced upon young people. In one passage, after having a poor sexual experience with Rita Bettencourt, Sal sadly notes that "Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without ... real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and ... precious." It is in these brief moments of reflection between the constant coming and going of Sal and the rest of the beatniks that the reader gets a sense of the cultural influence and post-war sensibility beginning to take shape in America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These brief reflections give rise to the outright rebellion that the Beat generation embodied during this time.

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Part 1, Chapters 11-14

Sal arrives in San Francisco, two weeks late, and meets up with his old friend from college, Remi Boncoeur. Remi and his girl, Lee Ann, live by the docks in a housing project called Mill City, supposedly the only place in America where blacks and whites voluntarily live in the same neighborhood. After spending several weeks with Remi in his shack, Sal decides he needs a job, so Remi gets him one as a guard in the shipyard barracks. The other guards are former cops who sit around and tell stories of arrests they made and riots they put down in Alcatraz. One night, before a group of sailors are to ship off in the morning, Sal attempts to keep order in the noisy barracks. Instead of keeping order, however, he ends up getting drunk with sailors and raising the American flag upside down the next morning-an offense he is told he could go to jail for.

Most of his nights at the barracks are spent with Remi. They walk the halls, and Remi devises plans to steal money from the sailors who stay there. One night they accidentally sneak into the room of the barracks supervisor, a man they name Dostioffski (a name Remi creates from his mispronunciation of Dostoevsky), and almost get caught. They also sneak into the barracks cafeteria and eat ice cream and steal food. One night Remi steals an entire load of groceries for his house, claiming that President Truman mandated that "we must cut down on the cost of living."

Between day trips into the city to see the Banana King, an old man who sells bananas on the street, and jaunts to an old freighter ship in the bay, Sal spends nights in the city trying to find a girl. He dreams of robbing a jewelry store. He tries to scare the homosexual men who make advances on him in the bathrooms of bars. Sal is becoming tired and lonely in San Francisco, and his relationship with Remi and Lee Ann starts to deteriorate. After a night of gambling away all of their money at a race track, Remi and Lee Ann have a huge fight and Remi decides to break off his relationship with Lee Ann and his friendship with Sal. He only asks that Lee Ann and Sal pretend that everything is normal when his stepfather comes to town in a week. Both agree. Instead of behaving, though, Sal runs into one of his old friends from Denver, Roland Major, and they both get drunk and ruin the night for Remi, ruining what is left of their friendship. Sal, feeling as if he has reached the end of the road in his trip, decides to head back East.

Sal hitches rides down to Bakersfield and eventually has to take a bus into Los Angeles, where he meets a young Chicano girl named Terry who is running from her abusive husband. They hit it off and both think they are in love. In Los Angeles, they get a hotel room and begin to get drunk. Sal mentions offhand that a friend of his in New York could show her where to get work. Terry, getting drunk, misinterprets this and accuses Sal of being a pimp and trying to turn her into a prostitute. They have a fight, and Sal kicks her out of the room. Instead, Terry realizes she might be mistaken and they end up making love and falling asleep together.

In LA, Sal and Terry decide they need to get jobs to earn money before leaving for New York. Sal sees LA as a "jungle" filled with varying characters: hipsters, beats, criminals, and cops. They attempt to get jobs all over LA and Hollywood, but no one will hire them. They eventually decide to hitchhike back to New York with the thirteen dollars they have left. After Terry borrows some clothes from a friend and Sal buys some bad marijuana in a bar, they attempt to catch a ride out of LA, but only cars full of high school kids go by, making fun of Sal and Terry as they pass.

The next day they set off to try to find work picking grapes but still have no luck. Instead, they hitchhike to Terry's brother's house. Terry's brother and his friend Ricky take Sal and Terry all around the California countryside, drinking and trying to sell manure to farmers. They eventually end up in Mexico-town and get a hotel room. Sal and Terry are down to their last two dollars. For the next few days Sal, Terry, Terry's brother, Terry's son, and Ricky spend all their time getting drunk in a tent Sal rented. When their money eventually runs out, Sal gets a job picking cotton.

Sal enjoys picking cotton, even though his fingers bleed and his back aches. He is not very good at the job, though Terry and Terry's son help him. Each day Sal earns a dollar and a half, which he uses to buy food for the family that he sees as becoming his own. Sal begins to settle down into domesticity in the migrant worker tents with Terry and Terry's son. The months go by, the weather begins to turn cold, and the money begins to run out. Terry takes her son and Sal to her family, and they take Terry back in. Sal wires fifty more dollars from his aunt and prepares to go back to New York. After spending a night in a farmer's barn, Sal hitches his way to LA and buys a bus ticket to Pittsburgh.

When Sal reaches Pittsburgh, he hitches rides to Harrisburg. He meets the Ghost of the Susquehanna, an old hobo trying to hitch rides to Canada. They walk together for several miles in the wrong direction before Sal gets a ride back to Harrisburg. Sal realizes after meeting the Ghost that the East holds just as much wilderness and mystery as the West. Hungry, Sal eventually gets a ride with a salesman who apparently believes in forced starvation as a health benefit. The man eventually relents and offers Sal some food and drives him all the way to New York.

Sal arrives in Times Square in New York, and he relishes the busyness of the city. He panhandles for a quarter to take the bus to his aunt's house in New Jersey. He has made it home just in time, before the cold of winter sets in. He begins to settle in to his former life of writing. His aunt tells him that Dean was at her house to stay a few nights just two days before, but Dean then set off for San Francisco, where his girl Camille has an apartment.

Analysis

Sal's arrival in San Francisco is met with great promise. His stay in Mill City, a city that houses both blacks and whites equally, is a promise of a progressive culture for Sal, an equality among human beings that he could not find in other places. His friendship with Remi Boncoeur (a name that means "good heart" in French) is emblematic of the hospitality that he expects to find in the city. But Sal eventually finds San Francisco to be just as lonely and conflicted as places in his previous travels. Remi and Lee Ann have a tumultuous relationship that is compounded by Sal's desire for Lee Ann. This highlights the theme of the separation between men and women, a theme throughout the novel that the reader encounters early with Sal's bad sexual experience with Rita Bettencourt. In the end, it is Remi's and Lee Ann's relationship, with Sal's unwillingness to conform to the codes of hospitality when meeting Remi's father, that causes the friendship to break apart.

Kerouac also deals with themes of authority and order in these chapters. Sal, having moved to San Francisco and needing money, takes a job as a security guard, a part of the police force. This kind of job represents a completely opposite lifestyle from the one he lived in Denver and hoped to find in San Francisco. His fellow guards, former policemen who keep to a strict regimen and take delight in enforcing the law and making arrests, are characters whom Sal does not understand in the book. There is a clear dividing line between Sal and Remi, who steal and gamble and participate in the unruly behavior of the sailors they are supposed to keep in check, and the other guards, who apparently want only to enforce the law and take part in the law's power and authority. Kerouac insinuates that the pressures of work to make money and to live a certain lifestyle are unjust, pushing people into roles they are not suited for. Sal and Remi rebel openly against the growing pressures of consumerism by taking advantage of their positions and stealing groceries from the barracks cafeteria, justifying the theft by quoting Truman's advice that Americans should live more frugally.

Sal's relationship with Terry, a Hispanic migrant worker fleeing from an abusive husband, is a turning point for him in the novel. This relationship moves Sal even farther from his middle-class New York upbringing and is his first experience with the "fellahin" lifestyle, the lifestyle and culture of marginalized people. Sal falls in love and begins to identify with this person of a different race. While Sal's behavior up to this point was not the usual behavior of someone from his background, this relationship was even more likely to have been looked down upon in his home; it marks a true separation from his life in New York and reflects his new life on the road.

Interestingly, in Los Angeles, the two lovers revert to stereotypes, Sal believing Terry to be a prostitute and Terry believing Sal to be a pimp. This illustrates the racial misunderstandings that existed at the time, which Sal and Terry have a hard time overcoming despite their growing love and lust. In the end, Sal interprets their dispute and distrust as a "fit of sickness" so that the two can reconcile-and make love.

The end of Part One of the novel finds Sal becoming part of the marginalized culture of Hispanic America before returning to his life in New York. By falling in love with Terry and becoming her provider and protector, Sal comes to identify himself as a Chicano migrant worker just like Terry. Sal, perhaps unwittingly, begins to encounter the racism of Los Angeles. He and Terry cannot get jobs in town, and they eventually have to head for the farm country of California to find the only jobs available to them, laboring jobs in the fields. Sal immerses himself in the migrant worker life, earning little more than a dollar a day picking cotton and living in a migrant worker tent village.

To this point in the novel, Sal had been purposefully rebelling from the comfort and status that his race provided for him. He could party and freeload off of friends up to this point because he knew that money was readily available when he needed it. Yet, when Sal becomes a part of the marginalized community of migrant workers, he finds he no longer is able to take those same privileges. Food and money run out, and because he now identifies himself as Hispanic (even though Terry's family does not identify him as such), he is forced to take the only work available to him. Yet, when the cold of the winter begins to set in, Sal recalls that he is allowed the privilege of leaving the fields. This is a privilege that Terry and Terry's son do not have, and she is forced to beg her family to take her back while Sal returns to his family as something of a prodigal son (more or less) in New York. The divide between the races that Sal and Terry first experienced in Los Angeles ultimately drives them back to their initial homes and cultures.

The pastoral passages of the cotton field are Kerouac's attempt to idealize, perhaps unconvincingly, the discrepancies and tensions between races at this point in American history. Sal's adventure as a migrant farm worker does not encompass the harshness and desperation of such work for most at the time, instead illustrating an idyllic picture of the hard work of migrants. Instead of becoming truly immersed in the hardships of the culture, Sal only plays the role of a migrant farm worker. It is a role that he knows he will eventually leave. As Sal arrives back in New York, he finds that he has not fully developed into the person he wanted to become. He has missed Dean, the inspiration for the journey, and now finds himself confronted again with the life of work and family he attempted to leave behind. His return home ends his first journey and Part One of the novel, yet Dean has already gone on ahead.

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Part 2, Chapters 1-6

A year passes. Sal finishes his novel and attends school on the GI Bill. Through writing to Dean in San Francisco, Sal learns that Dean is coming back East. In Testament, Virginia, while Sal and his aunt are visiting Southern relatives for Christmas, a '49 Hudson pulls up carrying Dean, Marylou, and Ed Dunkel. Sal is surprised and happy to see his friend. Dean soon volunteers to haul furniture for the family back to New Jersey. Sal learns that Dean was living in San Francisco with Camille for the year. He and Ed Dunkel were working on the railroad, and when Dean saw the Hudson for sale he spent all his savings on it. Ed married a girl in San Francisco just so she would pay for the trip East, and thus they have headed to pick up Sal and return him to San Francisco. Ed's wife's money ran out by Tuscon, however, so the men left her in a motel and kept traveling, picking up various hitchhikers along the way to help pay for gas. Dean picked up Marylou, his former wife, in Denver. They decided that this time "they were going to stick." Through accidents and snowstorms the group made its way across the country and eventually to Sal's relatives' house in Virginia. Sal, Dean, Ed, and Marylou head to downtown Testament to buy supplies for their trip. Dean is as compulsive and frenzied as ever. As the group returns to Sal's relatives' house, Sal realizes that he although he had been spending a quiet Christmas in the country, "the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty." They load Dean's car with furniture and begin to drive the thousand miles to New Jersey. Sal tells the group about a girl he has been dating, Lucille, and talks about wanting to maybe get married and settle down. The group ends up eating free hamburgers in a diner after the owner asks them to wash the dishes. After driving through New York City, they head for Sal's aunt's house in New Jersey and sleep. In the morning, Sal gets a call from Ed's forgotten wife, Galatea. She had made it to New Orleans and was looking for Ed. Sal promises they will pick her up on their way back to San Francisco. The group meets up with Carlo Marx, who "quieted down" since the Denver days and now relates stories of a trip he took to Africa. After a quick meal of rice, Dean and Sal drive back to Virginia to pick up Sal's aunt and the rest of the furniture.

During the overnight drive to Virginia, Sal and Dean talk about the existence of God, his reformed behavior from his youth, and about how Dean was now a mystic. On the trip back to New Jersey, with Sal's aunt in the car, they get pulled over by a Washington police officer. With no money to pay the speeding fine, Sal's aunt has to pay. Sal's aunt believes that the world will never find peace until "men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness." This exclamation causes Dean and Sal to reflect on how they do not understand the women in their lives. They arrive in New Jersey, where Sal's aunt cooks a meal for everybody.

Sal, Dean, and Ed head into New York to find a place to live for a while. While driving in, Sal becomes haunted by the idea that he forgot something-a decision he was supposed to make before Dean arrived. The decision had to do with the Shrouded Traveler, a figure in a dream whom Sal decides represents death. Dean thinks the Shrouded Traveler represents a "pure death," the state of bliss experienced first in the womb and not again until a person dies. Dean decides he will have nothing to do with this kind of death, and Sal agrees with him. They begin to visit friends in New York for the New Year's weekend. They party for three days. Lucille, Sal's girlfriend, becomes distressed when she sees how crazy Dean makes Sal. Marylou, realizing that Dean is going back to Camille in San Francisco, tries to get Sal to be her man, but he refuses. Sal realizes his affair with Lucille cannot last much longer because she wants things "her way" and Sal is not ready to give up his life of traveling. The New Year's parties get bigger and bigger, and a cast of characters and New York friends come in and out, including Rollo Greb, a beatnik scholar who Dean believes "get(s) it." When Sal tries to find out what "it" is, Dean's only response is "IT! IT!"

During the weekend, Sal and Dean visit a jazz club to see a musician Dean says also has "it." The musician, a blind piano player named Shearing, enraptures Dean and Sal, partly because of his playing and partly because of the marijuana they are smoking. When Shearing is finished, Dean points to his empty chair and exclaims, "God's empty chair ...." Sal feels the madness of the weekend overcoming him. After a rest at his aunt's house, Sal decides to go back West with Dean, partly to see what "Dean was going to do" and partly so that he can try to have an affair with Marylou once Dean goes back to Camille. The group spends a few more days in Carlo Marx's apartment where Carlo lectures them on what they are making of their lives; Carlo talks to them about his new role as "The Voice of Rock"-a new period of madness for Carlo. One night in a "hoodlum" bar, Dean proposes that Sal try to sleep with Marylou, just so that Dean can know what she is like with another man. They drive back to the apartment and wake Marylou. While Dean watches, Sal and Marylou try to make love, but Sal confesses he wants to wait until they get to San Francisco because his "heart isn't in it." Dean returns and makes love to Marylou, an act that Sal believes is Dean's attempt to realize the "origins of life-bliss," a need he developed from his neglectful parents and his time in prison.

The group call their friend Old Bull Lee in New Orleans, who has been taking care of Ed's abandoned wife, and they promise they are coming to get her. Sal tells his aunt goodbye and that he will be back in two weeks-and the group is off for California. Back on the road, Sal realizes the group is "performing our one and noble function of the time, move." Dean encourages the others to forget their worries and fights of the past and to focus on the good time they will be having in New Orleans. Dean and Marylou make plans to sneak around behind Camille's back when they get to California, and Sal realizes he is not going to get to "make it" with Marylou after all. They arrive in Washington, D.C., on the day of Harry Truman's second inauguration and watch a military parade go down Pennsylvania Avenue. They get pulled over again in Washington, and the cops try to put Dean and Marylou in jail under the Mann Act, a 1944 law that prohibits the transport of women for prostitution. The cops threaten them but end up only giving Dean a $25 fine. Sal accuses the police in America of being engaged in psychological warfare against its citizens, making up crimes and invading people's privacy.

In Virginia, they pick up a Jewish hitchhiker before they reach Testament. The hitchhiker says he will get the group some money, but he never shows back up, so they leave. The group drive through the South stealing gasoline and cigarettes. In Alabama Dean begins telling stories of his childhood. They arrive in New Orleans to the sound of jazz music on the radio. They take in the sights and smells of the South and of New Orleans and exclaim their love for women. They find Old Bull Lee's house outside of town. Ed and Galatea, his forgotten wife, are reunited. Bull Lee is a schizophrenic drug addict who held a myriad of odd jobs all over the world, but he is warm and cordial to the "maniacs" he finds when he comes home. Sal relates several old tales about Bull Lee: he had studied multiple disciplines all over the world and now wanders the streets of New Orleans with different shady characters feeding his Benzedrine habit. Bull Lee takes the group into New Orleans, but they hit only the "dull bars in the French Quarter." They cross the Mississippi on a ferry, and a girl commits suicide on the boat. Back at Bull's house Marylou takes every drug that Bull will give her, and the rest of the group get high on marijuana. Sal tries to take a walk to the river but cannot reach it because of a fence. With a volume of Kafka on his lap, Bull Lee muses, "When you start separating the people from their rivers" what you get is "Bureaucracy!"

Analysis

Part Two begins with Sal's rebirth from his family life to his life on the road once again as Ed, Dean, and Marylou arrive to take Sal back West. These first three chapters begin to explore the notion of male freedom within the structures of heterosexual family and marriage that defined this time period of the Forties and Fifties. Dean and Ed treat Ed's wife as disposable, leaving her in a hotel on the journey, and Dean leaves Camille, his love interest from earlier, to return to his wife Marylou. Dean comments that he truly does want real love, but he only wants it "free of hassles," meaning the freedom to come and go and do as he pleases. In On the Road women are portrayed as being able to provide food, shelter, sex, and warmth at their own cost and in exchange for both freedom and adventure for men. There is no sense of commitment in Dean's life, and Sal follows this lead by giving up his dreams of marriage and family with Lucille to follow Dean on the road. In Sal's eyes, Dean has transformed in a year from a merely excited individual to an ecstatic prophet. His thoughts and actions take on religious significance in Sal's eyes. Dean's presence interrupts the quiet family gathering in Virginia, and Dean, also likened by Sal to a virus, brings Sal back to the road.

Themes of matriarchal rule also come up in these chapters. After the speeding ticket, Sal's aunt is the one who takes control, paying the fine and returning home to cook and care for the young people. Just as Kerouac did in his real life, Sal is caught in the position of assigning roles to women-either of mothers or of sexual objects-making it unclear how he will achieve true love and marriage.

The reader gets a further glimpse into the racial fascination that Kerouac develops throughout the novel. Dean dances to a Bebop record that Sal has bought, and he idolizes an old black man riding a mule on a farm. Carlo took a trip to Africa, where he immersed himself in African culture. Kerouac suggests that black culture carries forward certain truths that white American culture has lost. As in Part One, when Sal idealized migrant farm life, the theme of race and its interplay with "It" plays an important role and will continue to do so. With the return of Dean and the promise of another adventure out West, both Sal's life and Kerouac's narrative begin to increase in disorder. Kerouac's writing begins to take on a more frenzied nature, emblematic of the characters he is describing. His sentences often run into each other without punctuation, and he jumps from theme to theme, sometimes within the same paragraph or the same sentence. As with the writing, Sal's life becomes more frenzied and disordered. The sexual lives of Kerouac's characters become entangled with each other as Sal and Dean want to exchange lovers and Dean propositions Sal to sleep with Marylou while he watches.

Sal's philosophy of life also becomes darker and more disordered. He relates his vision of the Shrouded Traveler, a representative of death. Dean, having become more intense since the earlier chapters, assures Sal that one can reach a true understanding of life if one only moves fast enough. Kerouac suggests that his characters are trying to take on immortality by the very speed and pace of their lives as well as through their travels. Dean's motto for life and path to immortality is twofold: move and don't worry. This quest for immortality and individuality is arrested, however, by the police and military presence the travelers encounter in Washington. As Bull Lee comments at the end of chapter six, this "bureaucracy" intrudes into people's lives and keeps them from expressing themselves and living life to its fullest. The group's reaction to these machines of war parading in Washington and the police that later pull them over shows just how removed they have become from mainstream American values.

Arriving in New Orleans, Sal and Dean are once again excited by the novelty of the African American culture in which they hope to participate. They meet up with Bull Lee, a character modeled after the legendary Beat poet William S. Burroughs, who models an eccentric, drug-addled lifestyle for the group. The stay at Bull Lee's only intensifies the disorder taking over on this trip out West. The Mississippi River makes another appearance in the novel as gateway to the West. Sal begins to create an American mythology out of the river as both a chance at new life, symbolized by his crossing of the great river, and as a peril of death, symbolized by the oft-used literary trope of the girl who commits suicide.

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Part 2, Chapters 7-11

In the morning, Old Bull Lee, Sal, and Dean attempt to pull nails out of an old piece of wood. This gives Bull time to talk about his theories of government conspiracy, his crazy relatives, and his invention for warding off cancer. In the afternoon Bull and Sal go to a "bookie joint" to gamble, where Sal has a vision in which a racing horse reminds him of his father. On the way home, Bull tells Sal that he believes mankind will soon realize they can talk to the dead. Back at Bull's house, the travelers compete in athletic competitions like running and jumping, and Dean wins them all. After an afternoon in New Orleans where Dean shows Sal the ins and outs of the rail yard, the group say farewell to the Lees and leave New Orleans. Sal muses about the feeling of seeing someone become smaller as you drive away until they are just specks on the horizon.

They stop at a filling station and steal more food, gas, and cigarettes because they only have just enough money to get to San Francisco. As they enter the swamps of Louisiana, they become frightened and awed by the night and the wild forest surrounding them. Exiting the swamp, they can see the oil tanks and refineries of Texas. They enter Houston, and Dean tells stories of his Houston days with Bull Lee and Carlo Marx. Sal takes over driving through Texas in the rain and gets the car stuck in mud after a car full of drunk field workers runs them off the road. The next day there is snow on the ground, and Marylou tempts Sal with promises of a relationship in San Francisco. They drive all the way to El Paso, stopping only once for Dean to take off all his clothes and run through the fields of sagebrush. Dean convinces Sal and Marylou to take off their clothes as well, and they all sit in the front seat together and drive on. In El Paso Dean takes off to "dig the streets" and leaves Sal and Marylou alone in the car. She tries again to come on to him, but he wants to wait until Frisco. Marylou confesses her confusion over her love for Dean and how she is sure he is going to leave her. Dean picks up a hitchhiker, and they decide to go to Tucson, Arizona, where a friend of Sal's owes him five dollars. In Arizona Sal pawns his pocket watch for a dollar of gas money, and a cop stops them to check their papers. Dean comments that the cops are always skeptical of groups of young people who come into town and start pawning their possessions. In Tucson they meet up with Sal's friend Hingham, a writer, who gives Sal five dollars and feeds the group. As they leave Hingham, Sal again thinks about watching his friends become smaller as they drive away.

They pick up another hitchhiker, a musician, who promises them money in Bakersfield. They roll into California, and Dean tells stories about his days in Bakersfield. The hitchhiker finds his brother in Bakersfield and gives the group money for gas. They drive the rest of the way to San Francisco, where Sal and Marylou get stranded on the street with no money for a hotel room while Dean makes arrangements with Camille. Having been abandoned by Dean, Sal and Marylou get a hotel room on credit and scrounge for food. Sal realizes Marylou has no real feelings for him and was only trying to get to Dean through him. As they lie in bed at night, and Sal tells myths of God and Satan that he has conjured up. When Marylou leaves him for a club owner, Sal wanders the streets of San Francisco, where he has visions of his past and of reincarnation. Dean, who has taken a job as a door-to-door salesman, finally takes Sal back in. After a few days of selling steam cookers, Dean and Sal become tired of life and Dean quits his job. They become "mad" again, however, when they go to a show by a jazz musician/performance artist named Slim Gaillard. Later, Sal and Dean experience the "madness" of African American jazz all over the Bay area. Sal finally becomes overwhelmed and tired by the scene and catches a bus back to New York, "thinking we'd never see one another again and we didn't care."

Analysis

The continuing trip to San Francisco gives Sal time to think about the transitory nature of life. Watching his friends fade away in the rear window of a car makes Sal realize the flow of time and the process of continual loss. It is a feeling that Sal finds both futile and liberating. For Dean, it becomes a necessity to retell the stories of his past as they drive through the towns of Texas and into California. The stories are often amoral and shocking, especially when the reader keeps in mind the cultural sensibilities of the 1950s when On the Road was published. These stories are Dean's own way of dealing with the idea of impermanence. The group's journey through the Louisiana swamps is again a way in which Kerouac mythologizes black culture in America. The group longs to find a jazz club in the swamp to experience this culture, but they end up being just as frightened of the swamp as they are excited by it. As Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue to drive west (Ed and Galatea Dunkel have disappeared from the narrative, apparently staying in New Orleans), Dean's behavior becomes even more erratic, driving naked and talking nonsense.

Once they reach San Francisco, Sal and Marylou find the town not as exciting or accommodating as they had hoped. They end up being left broke and homeless as Dean abandons them for other adventures. Unlike his earlier experience, Sal now only sees the "disenchanted" and sad side of San Francisco. Hungry and abandoned in San Francisco, Sal has a vision on the streets that begins to grasp the truth he has been searching for in his journeys. In this vision of reincarnation and divinity, Sal begins to see the fluidity, not permanence, of time. Many of the themes of this passage use Buddhist notions, ideas that would gain more importance in Kerouac's later work. Throughout the novel, Sal's character has been increasingly fluid in his identity: he has been a hobo, a traveler, a prophet, a family member, and so on. It is in this passage of visions that Sal begins to grasp the notion of his identity as being truly fluid.

In the final chapter of this second part, Dean takes Sal back in, but Dean's character has also changed. No longer a wild, amoral youth of the road, Dean has come back to San Francisco to provide for a family, take a job, and become stable. Yet, this new role for Dean cannot last long, and it is only a few days later that Sal and Dean lie around Dean's house, "sick and tired of everything." It is, again, the underground jazz of African American culture that drives Sal and Dean "mad" again and renews their faith in life. Kerouac's prose takes on the unresolved, confused nature of the music itself as he attempts to describe several of these African American characters and the madness that they bring with them. After an exhausting night out in which Dean, Marylou, and Sal "hit ... the Negro jazz shacks," Sal decides to head back east. Sal is now burned out by the frantic pace of his travels.

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On the Road Study Guide
by Jack Kerouac

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THE ESENTIAL MANUAL

FOR READING

AN ORIGINAL EDITION

“on the road”

by Jack Kerouac

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Part 3, Chapters 1-5

Part Three begins in the spring of 1949. Sal moves to Denver, even though none of his friends remains there, and gets a job in a fruit market. He has ideas of settling down in Denver, becoming a "patriarch." He is lonely and wanders the streets of Denver, wishing that he were another race: black, Mexican, or Japanese. He hates being a white man and despises the life his race has given him. A "rich girl" whom Sal knows gives him one hundred dollars to go to Frisco, so he gets a ride with a travel bureau car and takes off back towards the West. At two o'clock in the morning, Sal arrives in Frisco and immediately goes to Dean's house to find out "what was on his mind." Dean answers the door naked, and the two begin talking in order to "get with it." Sal's presence in the house causes a disruption for Camille. Dean had begun to settle down, but with Sal's arrival Camille knows that the madness will take him over again. Dean recounts his past year in Frisco: after stalking Marylou, he smoked some bad marijuana and had visions and nightmares in which the truth of his life came to him. He decided that he was love with Marylou and was going to have to kill her. After a standoff with a gun in which Dean declared that one of them must die, Marylou talked Dean out of his madness. Later, Marylou married a used-car dealer and Dean did not see her anymore. Dean hurt his hand trying to hit Marylou in the face, and an infection has caused it to become slightly deformed. Dean tells Sal of all his illnesses and sicknesses and about his daughter and domestic life. Dean seems to have finally settled down.

But Camille comes home one day to find her house and family in disarray. She throws Sal and Dean out. Sal realizes that Dean's broken thumb and bandaged hand represents what Dean has become, someone who "no longer cared about anything (as before) but now ... also cared about everything in principle ...." Dean simply takes life as it comes to him. Sal and Dean talk about going to New York and then to Italy on the money that Sal can get from his publisher for the book he just submitted. The two friends share an unspoken moment together in which they both realize their lives are intrinsically tied together before boarding a trolley-determined to get to Italy.

Dean and Sal go to a bar, where they make plans "to do everything we'd never done and had been too silly to do in the past." First, they call their friend Roy Johnson to chauffeur them around for a two day "kick" in San Francisco before they leave for New York. They try to find Remi Boncoeur, but he is no longer in the shack in Mill City. They go to Ed Dunkel's house, but he has left Galatea again and is in Denver. Eventually the new group-Sal, Dean, Galatea, Marie (a girl Dean picks up), and Roy Johnson and his wife Dorothy-end up sitting around Galatea's apartment, sullen at the disarray of their lives. The women harass Dean for his irresponsibility and the mess he has made of Marylou and Camille's lives. Sal describes it as a maternal instinct, harassing Dean the way a mother would an "errant child." Dean does not care and just giggles and dances at their insults. Sal realizes that Dean has become the "HOLY GOOF," the "Idiot." Yet, Sal also begins to compare Dean to a holy teacher and this group of friends to Dean's disciples. As the insults keep flying, Dean finally becomes "BEAT-the root, the soul of Beatific," as Sal says. He does not attempt to talk or party his way out of the troubles that have come his way. Sal tries to convince the group to go hear jazz and forget Dean and the troubles he brings. He also tries to convince them to follow Dean because he knows they "want to know what he does next and that's because he's got the secret that we're all busting to find." The others object, calling Dean nothing more than a con man.

The group eventually leave and find an African American jazz club, where they party and dance. Sal describes the madness of the club and Dean's intensity, matched only by that of a "tenorman" who drives the music of the club. The tenorman's son shows up and takes his father, Sal, and Dean to another jazz club called Jamsono's Nook, where they find a musician who reminds them of Carlo Marx. Roy Johnson picks them up and takes them to another club before heading home at dawn. Dean and Sal go home with another musician to drink beer and tell stories. Dean praises the musician's wife because she never had a harsh word for her husband even though he came home at dawn after a night of drinking. Dean and Sal call up one of Dean's railroading friends to sleep in his room. The next morning Sal gets their bags from Galatea's, and they prepare to take off for New York.

During their first ride, Sal and Dean sit in the back seat of a Chrysler and talk about the jazz men they saw last night. Dean says that the tenorman had "it" and begins to explain to Sal what "it" is. He describes "it" as a sensation of being out of time and body, in touch with an infinite soul within himself and within everyone else. In the backseat Dean and Sal swap excited stories of their childhoods, both feeling that they have "IT." Dean tells of his days with his father, the bum, and Sal tells stories of riding in the back seats of cars and dreaming of horses. When the car stops in Sacramento, the driver, a homosexual, tries to seduce Dean, but Dean talks him into letting him drive the next day, and the group starts making good time towards Denver. Dean's reckless driving scares the other passengers in the car, but Sal and Dean do not care and instead talk incessantly about life and the meaning of things. In Salt Lake City, the place that Dean was born, Dean has a revelation about how "People change, they eat meals year after year and change with every meal." After switching drivers a few times, the car finally makes it to Denver. Dean and Sal are left on the side of a street.

Analysis

This part begins with Sal's journey to Denver to start his life again. He sees himself as a kind of "patriarch" but quickly finds that without his friends in town, life becomes boring-he knows he must go to San Francisco. Before leaving, though, Sal takes a walk through the African American parts of Denver and, with jealousy, longs for the life of another culture. It is in this part that Kerouac sees the hope and promise of individuality and freedom not in the dominant white culture of America but in the excluded groups of minority America. Sal believes that it is these minority groups that retain the true individuality and freedom that make America a great land. It is significant that On the Road is published just as the civil rights movement is beginning. For Sal, however, the racism and exclusion in America provide a route to true freedom and happiness. As Sal leaves for San Francisco, he feels liberated from his past in a way that he had not previously felt. As Sal arrives in San Francisco, he finds Dean more broken than before, his broken thumb (a hitchhiking necessity) a symbol of the toll conventional life takes on a man. When Camille becomes frustrated with Dean's growing madness and kicks Sal and Dean out of the house, Dean and Sal find the fault for such behavior with Camille, a matriarchal figure who only wants to spoil their fun. This scene once again demonstrates Dean's and Sal's inability to understand women as equal partners in their journey, although one wonders about the roles of nature and nurture in the conflict between the sexes. Why is it that the men find it so much easier and enjoyable to go on the road? Do the women who travel with them count as equal partners?

Gender issues continue to play an important role as this section unfolds. During their two day "kick" in San Francisco, Sal and Dean, who have committed to be buddies for the rest of their lives, meet up with Galatea Dunkel. She again has been "given the slip" by Ed. It is at Galatea's house that Galatea, who was not afraid of Dean, confronts him about his behavior and lack of responsibility towards women. Instead of reforming Dean, however, this derision causes Dean to take on a kind of saintliness, at least in Sal's eyes. Confronting these harsh words makes Dean the prototype for what "Beat" is: a person who will sacrifice anything and anybody to find a true yet impermanent identity, a person who finds "it." The next scenes take the men and women back to the streets of San Francisco and into the jazz clubs. Any notions of responsibility and respectability are forgotten as the travelers party and dance through the night. Here, Kerouac's writing most takes on the form of the jazz music he loves. His sentences run on and are interspersed with words that describe the sounds and rhythms of the club. There is little narrative in this section, mostly description of the frantic and wild jazz club and the music that drove these men mad. African American culture is again idolized, and the jazz musician whom Dean and Sal go home with seems to have the perfect situation, a wife who does not complain about his behavior. As the two begin their journey to New York, a discussion about "it" from the previous night comes back up in the back seat of the car they are sharing. Dean compares and contrasts "it" to the fury of the jazz music the night before and with the conventional worries and problems of their fellow travelers. It is clear from this passage that ordinary people who live conventional lives do not have "it." In the stories that the two tell each other, time again plays a role. They are unable to truly capture the past and thus choose to be spontaneous in the present.

Part 3, Chapters 6-11

At a diner in Denver, Dean makes a crack about Sal's age (he is a few years older than Dean), and Sal gets angry at Dean. Dean gets so upset that he goes outside to cry. Sal, feeling awful over the incident, apologizes. The two share a sad moment in the diner. Sal realizes again that he does not know who he is anymore. Sal and Dean stay with Sal's former neighbors, a group of Okies (poor white people displaced from Oklahoma during the Depression). Dean gets in a fight with the Okie mother trying to help her buy a car. She is too indecisive for him and reminds him of his father's behavior. Dean begins looking for his father but does not find him, only finding rumors that he is working in a train yard in New England. Dean's cousin, Sam Brady, is coming into town, and Dean has to prepare Sal for his arrival. Sam was a bootlegger from Missouri who was one of the only members of Dean's family who showed him affection and care. Sal wants to know what kind of scam Dean is going to pull on his cousin, but Dean replies that there is no scam. He just wants to catch up with his cousin and remember moments from his childhood. Dean's cousin arrives and tells him that he does not drink anymore and has found religion. He drives Dean and Sal around Denver but tells Dean the only reason he is seeing him is that he wants him to sign a paper that cuts Dean and his father out of the family will. Dean is disheartened by this news, but he continues to get excited by the stories his cousin tells him about the past. When Sam drops the two off, Sal tells Dean he is sorry that nobody believes in him-but that he will always believe in him. The two go to a carnival, where Dean thinks he is falling in love with a three-foot woman but cannot get up the courage to talk to her. When they return to the Okies' house, Dean lusts after the Okie mother's thirteen-year-old daughter.

The next day the two go to downtown Denver, where Dean steals a softball. They return to the Okies' house and start getting drunk on bourbon. Dean tries to "make it" with one of the neighbors but scares her by throwing pebbles at her windows. She starts to come after the two with a shotgun, but Sal diffuses the situation. Dean, Sal, and the Okie family then leave to get drunk at a bar. At the bar, things get frantic when Dean steals a car, goes to downtown Denver, steals another car, and then comes back. The cops show up and start investigating. Dean starts stealing more cars and eventually leaves one in the front yard of the Okie family before he passes out. Sal has to wake Dean, and they dump the stolen car so that no one will know Dean stole it. In the morning Dean realizes the car he stole had belonged to a police detective and that the Denver police have records of his fingerprints from previous arrests. Sal and Dean decide they need to get out of town fast, so they pack their bags and say goodbye to the Okie family, a group whom Sal has come to regard as "our sweet little family." They call a cab, and after a brief scare in which Sal thinks the cab is a police cruiser, they get to Denver and catch a ride at the travel bureau.

At the travel bureau, Sal and Dean take an offer to drive a man's '47 Cadillac limousine to Chicago for him. Dean immediately begins making plans for the car in Denver (picking up women with it), but Sal is unsure. After picking up one woman and having quick sex with her, Dean picks up Sal and two boys from an Eastern Jesuit school for the road to Chicago. Two miles outside of Denver, Dean breaks the speedometer because he is driving over 110 miles per hour. Dean decides to visit his friend Ed Wall on his ranch in Colorado, but he runs the limo off a dirt road and into a ditch. A farmer helps them get the car out of the ditch, and they drive to Ed Wall's ranch while Dean tells stories of his days as a ranch hand. At Wall's ranch they eat and try to convince him that Sal owns the Cadillac and is a rich man. Wall does not believe it and thinks Dean stole the car. Like Dean's cousin, Ed Wall also has lost faith in Dean and is more concerned about his livestock than the adventures the two are having. That night the travelers speed through Nebraska at 110 miles per hour. Dean tells Sal about a road that goes all the way through Mexico and to South America. They dream about arriving in Chicago. Dean relates stories of his past travels, getting arrested, escaping, and meeting Marylou in Los Angeles when she was fifteen. In Iowa, they get into a race with a Buick and have fantasies that they are Chicago gangsters coming into town from a trip to LA. Dean is driving recklessly through Iowa, and Sal cannot stand it anymore. He climbs into the back seat so he does not have to watch. In Des Moines, Dean gets into a fender bender but thinks he has things straightened out with the other driver. On the other side of Des Moines, however, they get pulled over and detained because the driver complained he had been in a hit and run. The mess is straightened out after a call to the Cadillac's owner. Dean continues to drive recklessly at 110 miles per hour, almost getting into a five-car crash on a small bridge in Illinois. Sal has a vision of a jazz clarinetist who recently died in a car crash in Illinois. As they pull into Chicago, Sal again compares the group to gangsters coming from LA to "contest the spoils of Chicago." Once they get to their destination, Sal realizes they made it from Denver to Chicago, not counting the accidents and the stop at Ed Wall's ranch, in only seventeen hours.

In Chicago, Sal and Dean freshen up at a room in the YMCA and then head out to see the sights of the town. They follow a jazz band, and Sal recounts a brief history of jazz up to his present day. They follow the band to a different bar and listen to them until nine in the morning, taking only brief intermissions to get back in the Cadillac and try to pick up girls. Back at the bar, Sal and Dean listen to George Shearing, the musician Dean had named "God" in San Francisco. After Shearing, the jazz band realizes there is nothing left to play, but they try anyway. In the morning they return the Cadillac, dirty and busted, and get back to Chicago quickly before anyone can complain. On a bus to Detroit Sal talks with a lonely country girl who has no plans for her life, nor does she know what plans her family has. Sal decides the girl is lost. In Detroit they sleep in an all-night movie theater. Sal becomes sick of life, deciding he is nothing more than a piece of garbage in the theater. In the morning they get a ride with a family man at the travel bureau who charges them four dollars a piece for the ride to New York. They drive overnight and in the morning get to New York. They go to Sal's aunt's new flat on Long Island, where they stay. They go to parties in New York. At one party, Sal introduces Dean to a woman named Inez. They have a quick affair from which she gets pregnant. The section ends with Inez and Camille both giving birth to Dean's children, albeit in different cities. Dean now has four children all over the country and no money. Sal and Dean decide not to go to Italy after all.

Analysis

Sal's and Dean's philosophy of life, which took a greater form in the first chapters of part three, is now unleashed into the world through their travels unlike it had been before. Dean's notion is to live as spontaneously as possible in order to ignore, or transcend, the worries and responsibilities of life. Yet, as the two reach Denver, the consequences of living in such a way begin to confront them. In Denver, Dean begins to try to satisfy whatever urge or lust comes into his mind. As they begin drinking heavily, Dean's lust causes him to stalk a young neighbor. The mother of the girl greets the two with a shotgun while a group of boys are ready to fight them, and Sal has to talk their way out of the mess. Dean begins stealing cars and eventually steals the wrong car, the car of a police detective, and by the time they are leaving Denver, Sal realizes that once again, things are a "mess." As they leave Denver, running from enemies and the police, Kerouac seems to be urging the reader to approach Dean's philosophy of life with caution.

When Dean and Sal get the Cadillac limousine that will carry them to Chicago, Kerouac begins using metaphors that echo Melville's Moby Dick. As Dean drives madly across the Midwest, Sal compares him to a "mad Ahab at the wheel." Like Moby Dick, On the Road is a first-person narrative about an extraordinary journey that takes place on the fringes of American society and deals with race and companionship. In Detroit, Sal comes to face his own identity. Broke and tired at the movie theater, Sal's dreams and images of Hollywood play all night, beginning to merge and form together in his consciousness. It is in the movie theater where Sal notices the most "beat" of all the characters in the novel, in a sense-the homeless and destitute of Detroit-and the juxtaposition of the false reality of Hollywood and the true reality of this underbelly of America contrast sharply. Sal begins to identify most closely with the "garbage" he sees around him. He feels completely rejected by society and no better than the trash that litters the theater. Unlike the New York intellectual crowd that characterized "beat" at the beginning of the novel, this scene most fully identifies what Sal (and thus Kerouac, it seems) has come to view as the true "beat" culture of America. The remaining journey to New York is uneventful, and Sal arrives back at his aunt's house, the constant haven for food and shelter. Dean does not seem to change; he again continues his own journey, finding another woman and having another child. As the section ends, Sal muses on Dean's responsibilities and the children Dean fathered all over the country. Part Three ends with a note of sadness in realizing the consequences of constantly living in the moment. But, true to himself, why should Dean worry about the consequences?

Part 4, Chapters 1-4

Part Four, Sal's and Dean's final journey, begins with Sal telling the reader that he came into some money by selling the novel he had been working on in the previous parts of the book. It is spring, and Sal again feels the need to travel. This time, however, he sets out without Dean, leaving him at his job at a parking garage in New York-still living a domestic life with Inez in New York. Before he leaves, Sal and Dean talk about their lives in New York. Dean seems to have found some happiness with Inez, a woman who lets him get his "kicks" with a "minimum of trouble." Dean tells Sal they should eventually grow old and be bums. After a final Sunday afternoon in which they play ball with neighborhood boys, Dean repays the fifteen dollars he has owed Sal's aunt from the speeding ticket she paid, and she feeds the two a big meal during which she tries to compel Dean to stay married and take care of his children. The two say goodbye to each other. Sal tells Dean that he hopes they can one day settle down with their families on the same street-an image of domesticity they had been running from for the whole novel. Sal takes a bus to Washington, ranging about the South, visiting Stonewall Jackson's grave, then the Midwest, and finally gets to Denver with a friend he makes on the bus, Henry Glass, a young kid just released from prison. Sal takes Henry under his wing and escorts him to Denver, where Henry's brother has a job for him that will help him stay out of trouble. In Denver, they meet up with old friends Tim Gray and Stan Shephard. Stan wants to follow Sal to Mexico, and the two agree to travel together.

Sal stays with his old friends, Tim and Babe Rollins, for a week in Denver. They party and visit the jazz clubs and make preparations for the trip to Mexico. As he gets ready to leave, Sal gets word that Dean bought a car and is on his way to Denver, supposedly to drive Sal to Mexico. At that moment, Sal has a vision: Dean is the Shrouded Traveler, a "burning shuddering frightful Angel," blazing across the Midwest leaving death and destruction in his wake. Sal is uncertain about Dean's arrival, fearing for the children he is leaving behind and the money they will not get because he spent his savings on a car. Sal realizes that everything about the trip must now change with Dean's arrival. When Dean does finally show up, they rearrange their plans for Mexico and Sal admits that he feels all right with Dean's arrival. Sal adds that he cannot help but follow him wherever he goes. They spend a night in Denver at the Dunkels' house, reunited with their old friends. The Dunkels talk about their plans for the future, going back to school and settling down with family. Dean's madness, for the first time, seems out of place at the party. He attempts to entertain and infuse the party with wildness, as he had done in the past, but his presence only makes his old friends uncomfortable. The group migrates to the Windsor Hotel bar, where Dean and Sal get "fumingly" drunk. Sal breaks one of his fingers punching a door but does not realize it until the next day. The next day they map their trip to Mexico, the "magic south." Dean declares that this is the trip that will finally take them to "it." Stan says tearful goodbyes to his overprotective family, and the rest say goodbye to their Denver friends. Sal, Dean, and Stan take off for Mexico. Three miles outside of town, a bug stings Stan in the arm while they are driving, causing it to swell. They decide to stop at a hospital to get Stan's arm checked out. As they drive, they recount the stories of their lives, Dean instructing Stan to "deal with every single detail."

They drive through Texas, taking in the sights of the prairies and plains. Stan relates his travels in Europe, and soon they are rolling into San Antonio, where they stop at a hospital for Stan's arm. After he gets a shot of penicillin, they go with Dean to check out the pool halls of San Antonio. Dean says he is high on the air of San Antonio. They drive the rest of the way to the Mexican border by Laredo, Texas. At three in the morning they cross the border, where they discover that Mexico "looked exactly like Mexico." Dean and Sal are in awe of the men in straw hats lounging before battered storefronts. The border police check their baggage, and they exchange their dollars for pesos, excited to finally be in Mexico.

Analysis

Sal's and Dean's final journey, in Part Four, takes them to Mexico to truly experience the marginal culture that they have expounded about and idealized throughout the novel. It is not African American culture, but it is a subculture all the same, even though for the Mexicans, their own culture is itself the dominant one. That is the point: finding a society where people can do what they want without worry.

The goodbye that Sal and Dean share in New York illustrates the ironies of their carefree choices. Sal says goodbye with the hope that the two will one day settle down with families into a quiet domesticity, the kind of life the two have been rejecting since their first travels. Dean, meanwhile, hopes that he and Sal will one day grow old together as bums, dropping completely out of society, not interfering with anyone and not being interfered with by anyone. As this new journey begins, Sal begins to confront his growing maturity (after all this time) to become distrustful of Dean's lack of conventionality. Yet, Sal is the one who is on the road. Sal's budding maturity is seen further as he becomes a brief father figure to Henry Glass, the young ex-convict on his way to a job in Denver. Glass is the next generation-is it better to advise him to be a beatnik or not?

When Sal learns that Dean is coming to Denver, supposedly to drive him to Mexico, Sal has a vision of Dean as the Shrouded Traveler from Part Two. In part, this vision instills in the reader the kind of awe and legend that Dean's own friends felt for his arrival. In another sense, it is Sal's last apprehension about once again becoming overwhelmed and sucked into Dean's madness, a state he once longed for but now is not so sure he wants to participate in. Yet, when Dean arrives, Sal forgets his apprehension and they plan their trip to Mexico, a trip they believe will finally illuminate "it" for them. Sal again feels a kind of momentary separation anxiety as he watches Tim Gray recede in the distance, just as he watched previous friends recede. He compares the city of Denver to the sinking city of Atlantis. This section of the novel, the closing journey, is filled with apocalyptic imagery, and Sal compares himself to the biblical wife of Lot from Genesis, looking back on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They have escaped the destruction of the evil cities, but Lot's wife looks back wistfully; her place is there. As the group cross the Mexican border, Sal's sense of doom is replaced with the rush of the present. He describes Laredo, Texas, as the dregs of America, not just because it is one of the geographically lowest or most southern points in America, but also calling to mind the night in the Detroit theater in which Sal compared himself to the garbage of the place. Once over the border, they spot the Mexican culture that surrounds them, so they can easily forget such feelings as left behind in the United States. Instead, the excitement of travel resumes.

Part 4, Chapters 5-6

For Sal and Dean, Mexico is a "magic" land, full of cheap beer and cheap cigarettes. They are ecstatic at the world they have found, a world at "the end of the road." They drive through Mexico, excited at the prospect of getting to Mexico City and the adventures they will have while there. They pass through towns full of poor field workers, but the scene excites them. They feel they have found a true land of the "beat," people unencumbered by the trappings of money and work and white America. They drive through many Mexican towns, taking turns at the wheel so that they can take in the sights and sounds of the people and the terrain of Mexico. They are fascinated by the way of life here and do not want to miss any of it. In Gregoria, a small Mexican town, they stop and meet Victor, a Mexican guy who says he can get them girls and marijuana. Victor's mother grows the drugs in her backyard, and Victor rolls the largest joint Sal has ever seen, a cigar-sized joint. They all smoke it on Victor's porch, immediately getting very high. They all get so high that they have trouble talking to each other. Victor leads the group to the girls. Sal is so high that he begins having hallucinations in which Dean looks like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and God. He has visions of Mexico, hallucinations where he sees gold pour from the sky. Victor shows the group his baby son, and they all feel mournful desires for family and children-then they head for the whorehouse.

At the brothel, the three are treated like kings. The proprietor puts on Mambo music at their request, and they dance with the girls while the town watches through the windows. They drink and party with the girls, getting to know each one. Sal wants to have sex with a sixteen-year-old black girl, but he does not after he sees her mother come to talk to her. Stan has a fifteen-year-old Mexican girl. Sal eventually goes with another girl, not his first choice, who wants thirty pesos (about three and a half dollars) for sex. Sal does not care and throws money at her. A big crowd has begun to gather outside the whorehouse to watch the Americanos dance and party with the whores. An eighteen-year-old Venezuelan girl, drunk, latches onto Sal and gets him to buy her drinks. Sal desires her but does not have the heart to take advantage of her while she is drunk. He decides he wants to take her to a room, undress her, and then talk with her. His desire conflicts with the domestic instincts he has been feeling throughout Part Four. Sal keeps watching the black girl he had wanted earlier. He watches her sweep the floors and realizes how poor she is and how much she needs money. He contemplates just giving her money, but he thinks she might look at him with scorn and that he could not handle that. Sal thinks that he might be in love with the fifteen-year-old girl. Victor frantically shows the group that they have run up a tab of over three hundred pesos-thirty-six dollars. Sal convinces Dean that they need to bring the day to a close and get back on the road. They finally leave, dragging Stan out of the whorehouse, although he wants to stay and try out some of the girls of the night shift. They leave Gregoria to the celebratory goodbyes of the whores and the rest of the town.

Outside of Gregoria, Dean discovers that the lights on his car have stopped working. They decide to drive through the jungle in the dark. After a few miles, the lights finally come on, and the group revels in the new jungle climate and scenery they have entered. At a small jungle town, they pull the car over to sleep. Sal climbs on the roof and feels that he has become a part of the jungle, feeling the humidity and the bugs all over him. A sheriff comes by the car, but he only makes sure the group is sleeping. At dawn Sal witnesses a white horse emerge from the jungle, pass their car, and go back into the jungle. Dean thinks that Sal is just dreaming when he wakes, but then he remembers that he too had a dream of a white horse. Back on the road, they stop for gas. Sal freaks out at the sight of all the jungle bugs gathering at his feet. Dean's and Sal's bodies are also soaked in the mixture of blood from dead bugs and their own blood, drawn by mosquitoes during the night. They finally reach the mountains, where they observe the native Indians. They meet a small Indian child and talk to her for a while, trying to understand the differences between her and them. The Indian children attempt to sell them small crystals along the side of the highway, and Dean and Sal are confused and enamored with this exotic culture, so totally different and separated from the world of white America. Dean gives his pocket watch to one of the girls, and they are in awe of him. Sal compares him to a prophet who had come to save them. As they leave the children, Dean declares that his heart is broken to see them go.

They continue traveling through the mountains, taking in the simple, primitive towns that go by. Sal muses that these towns are so cut off from the rest of the world that they do not even know that "a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday." They enter Mexico City at dusk and take in the city. It is a place that seems to move and never stop, more than any other town they have ever seen. To Sal, Mexico City seems to be "one vast Bohemian camp." They spend all night just walking through the town, taking it all in, a "holy walk," as Sal describes it. Then, Sal gets sick. He has dysentery. Sal spends the next few days in and out of a sick daze in bed. Dean tells him that he is going back to New York after getting a cheap divorce from Camille. Stan will stay in Mexico City and care for Sal while he is sick. When Sal breaks his fever and recovers, he immediately thinks about what a "rat" Dean is for leaving him sick in Mexico. But then he understands the complex life Dean leads, "his wives and woes."

Part Five

Part Five begins by recounting Dean's journey home from Mexico. His car finally died in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he wired money from Inez to get back to New York. After taking Inez to New Jersey and marrying her, Dean suddenly jumps on a bus for San Francisco to live with Camille and his two children. Dean now has been "three times married, twice divorced, and living with the second wife." Sal returns to New York in the fall. There he meets the girl he had always wanted. They decide to move to San Francisco and to write Dean to tell him. Dean writes back with an eighteen-thousand-word letter. He tells them that he wants to come to New York to help them pick out a truck that will carry them and their "beat" furniture all the way to San Francisco. Dean shows up too early, though, and Sal has not been able to save enough money. Dean has been reading Proust and has very many things to talk about, including the way they parted in a "fever" in Mexico. Dean wants to bring Inez back to San Francisco, where he is still living with Camille, but Inez wants to have nothing to do with him and throws him out. Dean gets a letter from Camille, wanting him to return. Sal realizes that Dean has settled with Camille and will spend his life with her. Sal thanks God for Dean's life. Remi Boncoeur comes to New York and takes Sal and his girl, Laura, to the opera. Dean is preparing to leave New York for San Francisco and wants to ride in Remi's Cadillac to Fortieth Street. But Remi will not have it. The last time Sal sees Dean is as he walks down the street, receding in the back window of the Cadillac as Sal drives away. The book ends with Sal reminiscing about Dean as he sits on a river pier in New Jersey, thinking about the American landscape he had traveled across so many times.

Analysis

To Dean and Sal, Mexico seems to be the promised land that they were looking for on their many journeys. For Sal, Mexico represents the best way out of the conventional white American life. The beer and cigarettes are cheap, they can smoke huge amounts of dope, and they can visit whorehouses anytime they wish. All of this costs little money, and even more importantly, the police and the citizens of Mexico only watch, enthralled by the behavior, allowing it and encouraging it-perhaps because they are Americans. This culture has its own norms, and it is unclear why the travelers should be expected to worry about or even to know about conventional Mexican life. Sal and Dean seem to have no knowledge of Mexican culture and instead see the land around them only in terms of their own situation. The people's poverty, instead of a hardship, seems to be complete freedom. Just as with African American culture, Kerouac's characters again invert the traditional understanding of the repression of racial marginalization and poverty, instead presenting the life of these Mexican people as being gloriously free from the pressures of work and money that are experienced in America. For them, the primitive nature of Mexico is its best feature. Unlike their American journeys, Sal and Dean see their trip to Mexico as a trip to the source of life. Mexican culture seems not to have been touched or corrupted by modernity. In Mexico, there is nothing to run from or to. It is only a culture to be embraced because it seems to stand outside of time and history.

The culture that Dean, Sal, and Stan experience in the mountains of Mexico stands outside of anything they have ever seen. Realizing that the road they are on is itself a modern construction just ten years old, however, Dean begins to understand that even wilder forms of life live beyond the highway. Yet, because they are still white American men, they may not be able to leave the highway to discover the Mexican subcultures. There remains a divide between what they want to experience and what they are able to experience. Sal despairs in his realization of what the road might mean for such seemingly pure cultures. He thinks about the invention of the atomic bomb, a symbol for the great destruction that modernity has brought, and despairs that one day the roads and bridges of culture will be destroyed along with the possibility of a pure and free existence. Their experience in the Gregoria whorehouse provides Sal and Dean with one of their most amoral moments in the novel. During the day they consume massive amounts of alcohol and drugs, and the constraints of conventional society seem to no longer enter into their decisions at all. They have sex with young girls from different cultures and believe that this is what a pure culture can offer, the pure moment of experience. Only a brief moment or two of reality comes into Sal's mind when he sees the fifteen-year-old black girl. When she is sweeping the floor, he begins to understand her poverty and some of the realities of her life. Even so, there remains a divide between the two cultures that Sal cannot overcome.

Their arrival in Mexico City seems to be a revival of their previous experiences. Mexico City appears to be a "beat" city, and the reader can imagine the same kinds of activities and adventures that have characterized the rest of the novel. This final adventure might bring some closure and final understanding to Sal. Instead, Sal becomes sick with dysentery, Dean leaves, and the rest of the stay in Mexico receives no mention. In the beginning of Part Five, they are all back in America, having experienced the culture of Mexico but unable to stay. The close of the novel finds Sal beginning to settle down with a new love and a new life. Remi Boncoeur's offer to take Sal out on the town in a Cadillac suggests the alternative of a respectable, conventional life. But as Dean shows up with no other intention but to see Sal, Sal wrestles with the feelings of being torn between the two worlds. In the end, Dean cannot enter the Cadillac to go to the opera, just as Sal can no longer follow Dean on the road. Sal has made his choice. As Sal and Dean recede out of one another's vision, one might recall Paul Klee's Angelus Novus, the postmodern "angel of history" as described by Walter Benjamin. This figure has great resonance with Sal's experience. The novel ends with Sal contemplating the passage of time on a river in New Jersey. For Sal, no ultimate understanding of what "it" is has been accomplished. Sal finally understands that there is no such understanding except that of time moving by and people growing old and fading away. As for Dean, only his memory remains with Sal.

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The Cultural and Social Influence of Kerouac

No author of the Beat Generation was as influential and widely read as Jack Kerouac. It was On the Road, published in 1957, that catapulted him to fame, largely on the strength of a single review in the New York Times in September of that year. By 1957, the American public had begun to gain awareness of the beatnik culture, mainly through Allen Ginsburg's obscenity trial for his book Howl, as well as other media events. With the publication of On the Road, Kerouac became the face and voice of the Beat Generation. His interviews appeared in mass-market publications like Life and Playboy, and he appeared on television.

Though On the Road is a novel about a group of young people who live off the map of American culture, the beatnik culture took on a life of its own in the American consciousness after 1957. Movie rights were discussed, beatnik characters began to appear in popular television shows, and Mad Magazine did a parody of the Beat culture. Kerouac, though a serious artist and a fiercely loyal purveyor of the bohemian lifestyle he wrote about, nonetheless found his idea of the Beat Generation being opted and sold to Hollywood and popular American culture. The passages of the book which deal with the Hollywoodization of America, such as the scene in which Sal and Dean sleep overnight in a Detroit movie theater, seem to be eerily prescient in light of the popularity surrounding the Beat Generation following the publication of the novel.

Despite its popularity, Kerouac and the Beats were often blamed for everything that seemed wrong in America. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, famously said that communists and beatniks were two of the greatest threats to American culture. It seemed that anyone could find some ill in the American landscape that could be blamed on the beats and On the Road. Civil rights proponents found the book's African American characters to be caricatures of real life, and Kerouac's tone seemed to some of them to be patronizing against the racial struggles happening in America at the time. On the other hand, civil rights opponents claimed that the book glorified African American culture and blended white and black cultures in a way that was simply unacceptable for white sensibilities.

As huge cultural changes began to take form in America during the 1960s, the impact of On the Road grew. Kerouac was called an influence in many of the radical student movements of the time, and the folk singer Bob Dylan claimed that it was Kerouac who first inspired him to sing songs of protest. Even though the novel had not gained respectability in colleges or classrooms, it was being widely read by students throughout the '60s and '70s and was influencing a new generation of writers and thinkers, such as Sven Birkerts and Thomas Pynchon. In the 21st century, On the Road continues to be a beacon of hipster culture and the bohemian lifestyle. A Kerouac movie is rumored to be in production, and pictures of Kerouac have appeared in advertisements for a popular clothes brand. In 2007, a fiftieth anniversary edition of the novel was published as well as an edition of "The Scroll," the original unedited manuscript of the book, which was written on a long continuous piece of paper that Kerouac fed through his typewriter. Other editions of the book with new commentaries are also planned.

It is undeniable that On the Road has become a part of the American cultural landscape and will remain a part of it. It is not only a novel of a particular time and place, but it is also an inspiration for future generations and anyone who feels dissatisfied with the pressures in American culture to conform to a conventional lifestyle.

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Related Links on On the Road

The American Museum of Beat Art - art and writing from famous Beat Generation authors and artists. Brief biographies of Beat writers, including Kerouac.

- http://www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html

NPR - Kerouac's "On the Road" - A story about the novel with audio interviews and multimedia resources. - http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/ontheroad/

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Suggested Essay Questions

1. Discuss Kerouac's vision of individuality in On the Road. Is such a vision of individuality healthy or hurtful?

Answer: Kerouac's vision of individuality relies on a person's willingness to separate from the conventional lifestyle of the culture. For Kerouac, this was white American culture. In the novel, Sal often wishes he could become part of another culture and race, a true separation, yet whether or not Sal would be able to remain an individual while becoming part of another group is not discussed in the book. One could also question whether Sal was truly being an individual through much of the book, since his goal, as he stated it, was to follow Dean and Carlo around to be a part of the fun they were having. Towards the end of the novel, Kerouac seems to be suggesting that separating himself from Dean and the Beat lifestyle had become necessary in order to retain his own notions of self.

2. In the novel, what does it mean to be "Beat," and how does this concept change over the course of the novel?

Answer: At the beginning of the novel, Sal describes a person as Beat who is mad, "mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles." By this definition, someone who is Beat is a person who lives in the moment, always attempting to experience life at its fullest. Yet the notion of Beat changes through the novel. This change is best characterized by the persons Sal finds himself surrounded by in a Detroit movie theater, a place he and Dean stop to sleep because they cannot afford a room. These people he describes as trash, persons who have been discarded by society, an image Sal himself comes to identify with.

3. Discuss Kerouac's use of the passage of time in the novel.

Answer: Kerouac's notion of time seems to be that of an entity that is constantly moving and constantly taking others with it. During the novel, Sal feels many different emotions concerning this reality. As he sees his friends growing smaller in the rear window of a car as he leaves them, he laments not being able to be a part of their lives permanently. Yet, the madness he seeks makes such permanence impossible. This is also the case in the memories that Sal and Dean continually share. They cannot conquer the past, so they continually try to relive it.

4. Sal and Dean discuss "it" throughout the novel and believe that each of their journeys is going to bring them closer to this "it." What is "it"? Do Dean and Sal ever find "it"?

Answer: Dean's and Sal's notion of "It" is best summed up by Dean as he watches a jazz musician preform. The musician has "it" because he is living completely in the moment. He no longer cares for the conventions of society because when he has "it," he is able to live outside those conventions. He no longer cares about things like money, family, or shelter and the other necessities of life. For Dean, finding "it" means living in a pure state. Arguably, the closest Dean and Sal come to finding "it" is during their trip to Mexico. During this trip they have literally taken themselves out of the American landscape and immersed themselves in a new culture. They head to Mexico City, a place that could truly be a Beat haven for them, but they find they cannot live in "it" for very long after all.

5. What is the novel's vision of the American dream in relation to 1950s America and today?

Answer: The novel's vision of the American dream as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is interpreted as meaning that one is constantly moving through the American landscape. Adventure and exploration are the tenets of this dream, though through the novel Sal and Dean often find there are fewer and fewer places to explore. Kerouac's characters speak harshly to those who find happiness in consumerism and the conventional life of family and job. Kerouac also could see the American landscape, particularly the old frontiers of the American West, quickly turning into tourist attractions. This transformation has continued into the present day, and Kerouac's novel promotes traveling to get to know a culture rather than being a tourist who never changes.

6. Discuss the relationship between men and women in the novel. Are Sal and Dean justified in the ways they treat women?

Answer: For those who see conventional middle-class life as a burden to be challenged by a bohemian lifestyle, the way Dean and Sal treat the women in their lives might seem necessary. Family and wives were, and are, part of the bedrock conventions of society. Yet, in the novel, Sal begins to see the toll such a lifestyle can take on one's loved ones. During their last journey, both Dean and Sal have sentimental moments when relating to children, and they begin to see that ideas of family might be more important than they realize. The novel suggests that family ties are a natural part of human life, beyond mere convention. Sal and Dean are constantly torn between the love they feel for women and family and the freedom they desire. Nevertheless, treating women who are not going to become family seems to be a different matter, and here the conflict is about basic respect and equality versus individual aggrandizement. In that sense, the male beatnik treatment of women is part of the larger beatnik lifestyle of disrespect for the lives and property of others.

7. Is Sal's interpretation of African American culture fair?

Answer: Kerouac's novel has been criticized for being a glorification of a caricatured African American culture. Sal sees this culture as one that does not have to deal with the pressures of white middle-class conformity precisely because of the marginalization of African Americans in his experience. Through the novel, Sal often does not see the burden of this marginalization on African Americans.

8. What does law enforcement represent in the novel?

Answer: Law enforcement officers are truly the "bad guys." During the multiple traffic stops that Dean and Sal have to talk and beg their way out of, law enforcement officers are not seen as the guardians of society but as a force that is attempting to control society and take away an individual's freedom. In one section of the novel, Dean characterizes police officers as being a part of a national conspiracy to spy on Americans. For Dean and Sal, the military and law enforcement are the antithesis of what it means to live in America. Other contemporary dystopias take a similar view (consider Orwell's 1984), a reflection of anti-totalitarianism during the Cold War.

9. Compare the "old" Sal of New York with the "new" Sal after his journeys.

Answer: The "old" Sal of New York was primarily interested in following around characters such as Dean and Carlo Marx in order to "burn" with them in their madness and to catch some of that himself. Yet, by the time that Sal crosses the Mississippi River on his first journey, and continuing through his second and third journeys, Sal ceases to simply follow people around and becomes one of the madmen himself. While Dean remains the catalyst for these bouts of madness, Sal finds that he too possesses the power to experience life for himself in such a way. His first journey takes him everywhere from drinking on the back of a truck to picking cotton in California. The "new" Sal is a person who experiences life firsthand, not only through others. He also gains in wisdom about some of the effects of libertinism on oneself and others.

10. How might Kerouac's novel have influenced the cultural upheaval of the 1960s?

Answer: The cultural revolution of the 1960s reflected a time in which the more strict morals and conventions of the 1940s and 1950s were examined and often tossed out by younger adults. The novel provided a guide for much of the spirit of individual freedom from convention and power that was sought. In its depictions of drug use, loose sexual morality, and lack of regard for authority, it helped to plant the ideas of revolution that fueled much of the social changes of the time. The novel showed that subcultures could and did exist alongside the allegedly conformist life of the American white middle class, and it romanticized some of the alternatives by suggesting that greater freedom might exist through a subculture or Beat lifestyle.

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On the Road Bibliography by Jack Kerouac

Author of ClassicNote and Sources

Lane Davis, author of ClassicNote. Completed on July 31, 2007, copyright held by GradeSaver. (Updated and revised by Adam Kissel August 14, 2007. Copyright held by GradeSaver.) Maher, Paul. Kerouac: The Definitive Biography. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishers, 2004. Holton, Robert. On the Road: Kerouac's Ragged American Journey. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999. Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

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Xiron, Xin. Kerouac Vrac - Full Text - Slot One, Slot Two.

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Great Hymn to the Aten

The Aten (Sun) of Pharaoh Akhenaten :

A monotheism of light without darkness

by Wim van den Dungen

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colos of Amenhotep IV

Gem-pa-Aten temple at East Karnak

"the Aten is found" - Cairo Museum

O sole god without equal !

You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.

Risen, radiant, distant and near.

Great Hymn, 47 & 73-74.

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Introduction

1 The New Kingdom and the colossal Amenhotep III

1.1 A few political features of the New Kingdom : the age of empire.

1.2 The great builder, dated Sed-festivals & traditional piety.

2 Prelude to Amarna religion : the "New Solar Theology"

2.1 The antiquity of the title "Son of Re" in Pharaoh's titulary.

2.2 The theology of the Sun, of light and movement.

2.3 The naturalization of the divine in religious experience.

3 The Rise of Akhenaten

3.1 Again Pharaoh's titulary or definition of rule.

3.2 The grotesque Pharaoh, permanent dynamism & intimacy.

3.3 The singularity of divine mediation : Aten - King - Queen.

The Great Hymn to the Aten
hieroglyphic text

4 The Aten-project :

CULTIC : dictatorial eradications & an imposed religion

4.1 Brutal end of previous worship, especially of Amun.

4.2 New open temples with no statues, roofs or holy of holies.

4.3 Flowers as perferred offering.

4.4 New dynamical representations : globe, Ankh, chariot.

NOMIC : radical naturalization of the "old" religion

4.5 Only Aten is divine and there is no god but Aten.

4.6 Life-giving light is the only divine presence.

4.7 Pharaoh is the only one with the Aten in his heart.

COSMIC : only light, presence and movement

4.8 Light without darkness.

4.9 Presence without absence.

4.10 Unity without multiplicity.

MYSTIC : exclusive & highly subjectified

4.11 Without Pharaoh no salvation.

4.12 Eradication of Amun's interventions on behalf of the common people.

4.13 The mystical experience of Nature ?

5 Why was Akhenaten's monotheism sterile ?

6 Ancient Egyptian religion after Amarna

6.1 Restoration & the breakthrough of the Ramesside renewal of the old.

6.2 The integral, antithetic synthesis : Amun-Re who becomes millions.

6.3 The Mosaic revelation, YHVH Elohîm and the elimination of the figural & the inert.

Epilogue
Notes

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Remark :

The use of capitals in words as "Absolute", "God" or "Divine", points to a rational context (i.e. how these appear in a theology conducted in the rational mode of thought - cf. cognition, neurophilosophy & theonomy). Hence, when these words are used in the context of Ancient Egyptian ante-rational thought (which, as a cultural form, was mythical, pre-rational & proto-rational), this restriction is lifted. Hence, words such as "god", "the god", "gods", "goddesses", "pantheon" or "divine" are not capitalized.

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Introduction

► Personal piety and the horizon of contact with the Divine

In The Seach for God in Ancient Egypt (2001), the egyptologist Jan Assmann proposed to measure Ancient Egyptian religion (its activities and experiences) using three "dimensions". These represent their conceptual horizon of contact with the divine, namely :

the cultic : the local, political residence of the deities, either as belonging to a particular place and/or as state deities functioning as symbols of the collective, political identity ;

the cosmic : the emergence, structure & dynamics of the sphere of their action ;

the mythic : the sacred tradition, or "what is said about the gods", their cultural memory as set down in myths, names, genealogies etc1

" ... there was no explicit and coherent explanation of Egyptian theology on the metalevel of theoretical discourse in Ancient Egypt any more than there were theoretical explanations in other areas, such as grammar, rhetoric or historiography. As is well known, the development of theoretical discourse, at least in the Mediterranean world, was an accomplishment of Greek culture."
Assman, 2001, p.9.

For Assmann, there are multiple dimensions, some of which "are realized in dominant form in any given historical religion".2 The ones mentioned above were treated in a dominant fashion in Ancient Egyptian religion. In Assmann's reading, the Amarna religion assisted in the breakthrough of a fourth dimension in the era that followed it, called by Breasted "the age of personal piety" (1912). By closing the temples and banishing the deities of the old religion, Akhenaten had forced the worshippers to resort to internal gods & goddesses "placed in the heart" (mind).

Because, according to Assmann, the mystic "absolutizes the inner presence of the divine and takes satisfaction in it"3 , he is reluctant to name this fourth dimension of "personal piety" truly "mystical". However, this holds only true if his definition of mysticism is accepted, which is not the case here.

Mysticism is the direct experience of the Divine. On the basis of the provisional comparative form of the phenomenology of Hinduism (Classical Yoga), Judaism (Qabalah), Christianity (the Jesus-people) and Islam (Sufism of Al Junayd and Ibn'Arabî), arrived at by means of a comprehensive hermeneutical and participant observational approach, the more mature and unfolding architecture (form) of this radical experience is conceived as implying a bi-polar one-fold. The universal & fundamental structure of this experience, always reflects both the inner as well as the outer aspect of the Divine (cf. Divine bi-polarity).

Negative theology puts the mysticism of un-saying in perspective : the essence of the Divine is unknown, ineffable, incomprehensible and absolutely absolute. Positive theology affirms the Presence of the Divine in the created order. Like Bergson, I would like to suggest that the mystics are the true founders of the religions. Also that mystical experience is a universal human factor able to manifest in formidable everyday experiences (orgasm, strong emotions, aha, serendipity, cognitive paradox, synchronicity, inventivity, true love, creativity through service). See on these differences : Introduction to a Colorful Recital.

The mature mystic finds the Divine "in the heart" (inner, the seer) but he or she also unveils that everything what can be experienced (outer, the seen) is the Self-manifestation of the Divine. This may explain their strength facing evil (cf. theodicy).

However, to consider the mystic as exclusively focused on the inner side of the equation (as does Assmann) is limiting mysticism by a theistic approach of the Divine, which stresses the absent, transcendent and remote characteristics. All major traditions interested in the experience of the mystics themselves (exploring mysticism in an experiential way) are confronted with the "agonizing polarization"4 between manifest and hidden. All major mystic traditions have identified these two poles and were aware of the tension. It is typical for the mystics that although they identify the two seas (salty & sweet) they never eclipse the fact that the water of life is one living water of Divine Presence (as Marguerite Porete so admirably synthesized in the character of "Loinprés", Farnear - a theme explicit in Amarna theology & later in Theban theology). The bi-polarity is a phenomenon taking place within a fundamental, implicit, unbreakable, eternal but unfolding unity (cf. "pan-en-theos" : all-in-God - cf. henotheism).

As Staal demonstrated5 , mysticism implies a structure of direct experience (between the mystic and the Divine, both inner as outer) and a superstructure which is a verbal thematization of the experience (as a solitary and/or as a group) which may lead to textualization and canonization. To limit the structure of mystical experience to being satisfied with a fusion with the inner, hidden & remote aspect of the Divine, is considered by mystics (in the East, Middle East and West) as a limitation and an incomplete experience of the Divine (cf. Ibn'Arabî on the paradoxical, wonderous perplexity of the "station of no station", and Sufi criticism on stressing Divine remoteness). It may even lead to insanity and heresy. The mature mystic has inner trance and outer sobriety (cf. Al-Junayd). Trance without sobriety is insanity. Sobriety without trance is utter darkness. Outer sobriety is also regulated by the idea of moral harmony (cf. Maat), i.e. symmetrical communication with other human beings aiming at establishing, sustaining & differentiating the common good (of nature, family, society, the planet, etc.).

In this paper, I will consider the "breakthrough" of "personal piety", contrary to Assmann, indeed as "mystical". Moreover, the fact this "personal piety" became so important after Amarna is not denied, but its traces in the earlier stages of Ancient Egyptian religion are considered differently. True, only after the fall of the Old Kingdom is the conception of the soul ("bA") generalized and popularized (everybody had a "ba"). In the Middle Kingdom, as testified in the Coffin Texts, officials and their subordinates could also attain the enjoyment of the afterlife (continued existence and no "second death"), and eventually every deceased person was an "Osiris NN".

But, in the Old Kingdom (and also thereafter) Pharoah was a paradoxical figure, for he was a "god on Earth" while the other gods & goddesses abided in the other world, present in their temples and images in a symbolical and subtle fashion only (they sent their doubles -"kAw"- and souls -bAw- while their spirits -"AXw"- remained in the sky). Because religious activity happened between the deities6 (the temples do not mediate but were loci of the indwelling7 of the divine), the figure of Pharaoh, the "Great House" and divine king was extraordinary. Hence, in the Old Kingdom, the overt manifestation of the mystical approach of the divine was an exclusive royal prerogative, or as the Pyramid Texts claim :

"Men hide, the gods fly away."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 302 (§ 459).

Does this royal prerogative of the mystical in the written record imply the common Egyptians had no direct religious experience ? Did they, in their private domain, in the temple of their nome and in the regular festive processions outside the sacred precinct, never experienced the "radical other" (totaliter aliter) ? In the official point of view, only Pharaoh had a direct experience of the divine (being a god himself) and thus rose vertically to the stars, while all others Egyptians were barred from contact with the divine, except within the confines of their own inner subjectivity.

"Although in all periods relatively few people were directly involved in the cult, the temples and the cult performed in them would have existed in a partial vacuum if they had corresponded with little in the lives of the other people. Apart from this general point, several literary texts become more meaningful if it is assumed that contact with the deity, or experience of the deity, was considered possible."
Baines, J. : "Society, Morality and Religious Practice", in Shafer, 1991, p.173.

In the private tombs of Sheshi (VIth Dynasty - Saqqara) & Harkhuf (VIth Dynasty - Assuan), a stylized catalog of virtues occurs. These virtues are not told in the prose of the narrative autobiography but were recited in an orational style.8 They suggest great intellectual and literary capabilities.9 Together with the Maxims of Ptahhotep (Vth Dynasty under Izezi or Djedkare) they evidence interior reflection, wisdom and a search for true peace. Why would these individuals not have attained mystical states of consciousness ? Moreover, Ptahhotep is eager to relate how wisdom (with which no one is born) and the good (like wealth & peace) come by virtue of the deities. Apparently, they are not restricted to Pharaoh.

(139) If You are a weakling, serve a man of quality, worthy of trust,
(140) (so) that all your conduct may be well with god.
(141) Do not recall if once he was of humble condition,
(142) do not let your heart become big toward him,
(143) for knowing his former state.
(144) Respect him for what has accrued to him,
(145) for surely goods do not come by themselves.
(146) They are their laws for him whom they love.
(147) His gain, he gathered it himself,
(148) (but) it is god who makes him worthy,
(149) and protects him while he sleeps.

Ptahhotep : Maxims of Ptahhotep, maxim 10, D175 - "they" and "theirs" refer to the deities

Hence, regarding the horizon of contact with the divine, at least four elements seem valid :

cultic : the actual religious actions, expressions and manifestations of religiosity (in the temples of the nomes, in private homes and in state cults), intimately connected with the economical, social & political conditions at hand ;

nomic : what is said & written down about the divine, for example in the "House of Life" of the various temples ;

cosmic/social : the field of action of the divine ;

mystic/personal : the direct experience of the divine in personal piety.

► The Great Hymn to the Aten of Akhenaten

In the history of Egypt of Manetho (third century BCE), which became authoritative from Antiquity down to modern times (although full of inconsistencies), Pharaoh Akhenaten (ca. 1353 - 1336 BCE), is not mentioned as such. Instead, the names "Acencheres" (in Josephus), "Acherres" (in Africanus) and "Cherres" (in Eusebius) prevail.

"The Eighteenth Dynasty consisted of 14 kings at Thebes. (...) Achencheres ruled for 16 years. In his time Moses became leader of the Jews in their exodus from Egypt."
Manetho, 3th century BCE.

The Ramessides were deemed the immediate successors of Amenhotep III. Instead, Manetho handed down a story which was recorded by Josephus, according to which lepers ruled over Egypt during the reign of "Amenophis". They were in league with the Hyksos for 13 years and burned the cities, destroyed the temples and the statues of the gods. The period before Tutankhamun came to the throne is also described by Manetho as a period wherein "The land experienced an illness, and the deities did not look after this land." 10 Other classical writers like Herodotus, Diodorus and Strabo manifest no knowledge of this "heretic king". His memory had been suppressed. He had been forgotten ...

"The simplest and commonest technique of forgetting is the destruction of memory in its cultural objectifications such as inscriptions and iconic representations. This is what happened to the monotheistic revolution of Akhenaten, and the destruction was thorough enough to keep this event completely unretrievable until its archaeological rediscovery in the course of the nineteenth century. (...) Another technique of forgetting is silence. This technique was practiced by the Amarna texts, which never speak of what they implicitly reject."
Assmann, 1997, p.216, my italics.

After the death of Tutankhamun (ca. 1323 BCE), the vandalism and destruction of the monuments erected by Akhenaten at Akhetaten was on its way. Under Pharaoh Ramesses II (ca. 1279 - 1213 BCE), dismantlement and reuse were stepped up. A century after his death, Akhenaten is no longer named by his name, but as "the rebel" ("sebiu") or "the criminal" ("kheru") of Akhetaten.

"It seems likely that chronicles or annals in temple archives preserved some record of him and his reign. These chronicles were perhaps still extant in the third century BCE when they were consulted by historians writing in Greek, and a rather garbled version of Akhenaten's story was transmitted into the classical tradition."
Montserrat, 2001, p.29.

Although in November 1714, the Jesuit father Claude Sicard had made copies of one of Akhenaten's boundary stelæ11 and J.Gardner Wilkinson had discovered the tombs of his officials in 1824 and had made copies, both of these finds did not appear in print until years after Champollion's death.12 In his summary of Egyptian history (in the Appendix of his Letters from Egypt)13, the latter proceeded immediately from Amenophis III to his son "Horus", who continued the work of his father and had two weak successors, after which Seti I led Egypt to new heights ...

On the 26th of June 1851, Karl Richard Lepsius (who had arrived at Tell el-Amarna -the modern place name of Akhetaten-on the 19th of September 1843) communicated his conclusions that a "highly noteworthy episode in the history of Egyptian mythology" had taken place. Amenophis IV (identified with Akhenaten) opposed the prior worship of Amun with a "pure cult of the Sun : only the disk itself was tolerated as its unique image". He also mentions Akhenaten had commanded "the names of all the deities be hacked away from all public monuments, and even from the accessible private tombs, and that their image be destroyed to the extent possible".14 Slowly the learned world realized the existence of Akhenaten. The first monograph entirely devoted to the "heretic king" was written by Arthur Weigall in 1910.15

The empty tomb of Akhenaten had been discovered by locals in 1881 - 1882. In 1887, locals again discovered the famed archive of clay tablets (380 of them) containing the cuneiform correspondence of Akhenaten and his father with the princes of Western Asia. The authoritative edition was made by J.A.Knudtzon in 1915.16

Between 1883 and 1884, Urbain Bouriant, thank goodness, made a copy of the Great Hymn in the tomb of Aya (a brother of Teye, the mother of Akhenaten and tutor, even father-in-law of the reformer) of which a third was maliciously destroyed in 1890 (during a quarrel among local inhabitants).17 On the basis of this copy, the famed Great Hymn to the Aten could be studied for the first time by James Henry Breasted in 1895 in his Berlin dissertation : De Hymnis in Solem sub Rege Amenophide IV conceptis ("On the Hymns to the Sun composed under Amenophis IV").18

Contrary to the Memphis Theology, the Great Hymn to the Aten is not a composite work, neither does it have more than one temporal layer (the original of the former work may be written in the XVIIIth Dynasty, more likely in the XXth Dynasty, but older layers from the Vth Dynasty can not be ruled out). The Great Hymn gives, ex hypothesis, a clear and comprehensive picture of the ideals of Akhenaten himself, and was most likely composed by the king himself. The core of this ideal being a return to the exclusive, pivotal and mediating role of divine kingship, in casu Akhenaten's, coupled with a naturalistic reduction to visible light (represented by the Solar disk, the Aten). The Shorter Hymn to the Aten, which occurs in five Amarna tombs, has beauty but lacks structural unity and can therefore not make the same cosmopolitan and humanist leap as reflected in the Great Hymn to the Aten.

What is the philosophical interest of this text ? Following topics emerge :

history of philosophy : the claim philosophy started in Greece is traditional but questionable. True, in the Classical Age, Greek philosophy discovered the rational mode of cognition, but philosophy is not limited to this mode. In Greek philosophy, this is attested by the importance of the Ionic, Eleatic and Sophist schools of thought, evidencing the mythical (pre-logical), pre-rational and proto-rational modes. The later are always included in any systematic history of philosophy.

Let us eliminate his Hellenization of philosophy, rooted in Europacentrist opinions (Indian & Chinese philosophy for example are usually also excluded, although exceptions do occur - cf. the history of philosophy of Störig).19 The Memphis Theology, the Maxims of Ptahhotep, the Great Hymn to the Aten and many Ramesside Hymns to Amun-Re show a philosophical insight (albeit mostly proto-rational) far beyond the limitations of Ionic thought, which seems very rudimentary compared to the magnificent synthesis brought about in the late New Kingdom and the depth of the sapiental instructions found in the Old Kingdom (centered around the concept of justice or "Maat").

The fact of the influence of Ancient Egypt on Greek authors like Pythagoras (of whom it is said that he was the first to use the Greek word "philosophos"), Thales (the arche as "water"), Anaximander ("apeiron"), Plato (who praises the wisdom of the Egyptians and at the end of book VI of the Republic compares the idea of the good with the Sun), Plotinos (who was a Hellenized Egyptian) and many others (did Greek thinkers not travel to Egypt to study in "the land of the gods" ?), coupled with Egypt's relative vincinity to Greece, makes the study of the philosophy of Ancient Egypt more than necessary. It is a lacuna in the history of philosophy that such a fundamental study is lacking. Apparently egyptologist are not qualified to do this job and Western philosophers do not take the time to study (Middle) Egyptian, read most of the available egyptological studies or make hasty remarks (like Hegel on Egypt, Jaspers on Akhenaten & Sartre on Seth).

metaphysics : is an untestable but arguable set of speculative propositions aiming at a totalized explanation of being and its processes. It appeared as a separate discipline only after the works of Aristotle were put together by Andronicos of Rhodos (ca. 40 BCE), who placed these books "next to" (meta) Aristotle's work on physics (proving the relationship between both). In Ancient Egypt, especially in the Old & Middle Kingdoms, metaphysics is mostly shrouded in mythology and the specifics of Egyptian religion. Nevertheless, in the Maxims of Ptahhotep (the emerging idea of an overall ethical order), in the Pyramid Texts (hymns & ascension-texts), in the Memphis Theology (the logos-section), and other sapiental works, loci of metaphysical thought may be discerned.

Two Amarna themes have metaphysical interest, namely the disenchantment brought about by the New Solar Theology (objectification) and the inflation of divine kingship by Akhenaten, explaining why his revolution failed.

theology : Assmann argues polytheism was explicit and the problem of the divine (the search for the One) implicit.20 The common folk were polytheists and at a certain point in their religious history, the high priests and temple officers tried to solve the fundamental problem of every theology, namely theonomy (the name(s) of the Divine) and the solution of the tensions between the hidden and manifest poles of Divine bi-polarity. At the end of the Old Kingdom & in the Middle Kingdom, the realization the divine order could be broken up, triggered theodicy (which vanished from the literature of the New Kingdom).

My reading of Ancient Egyptian literature 21 suggests both polytheism, monolatery and henotheism were "originally" present. In the Old Kingdom, the Great One stays foremost in the background (cf. Atum in the dominant Heliopolitan cosmology, the unity of the Two Lands, the exclusive status of Pharaoh and the role of Maat, the universal order). In the Middle Kingdom, the first henotheistic attempts occur (cf. Amun as "king of the gods", the synergy of Re and Osiris). In the New Solar Theology of the Early New Kingdom, the Great One comes to the fore as Re, mingles with the pantheon and assimilates the deities in a theophanic (henotheism) way.

But Akhenaten was the first to consequently destroy the multiplicity of the old religion. His Aten stood above and was against all deities. The Aten was the "sole god", i.e. quantitatively singular (monotheism). A step too far ?

In Ramesside theology, henotheism and bi-polarity were again fully put to the fore and the conflict between the One and "the millions" was solved by the "coincidentio oppositorum" realized by Amun, "the hidden" (and also by Ptah). In this theology, the Great One did not oppose the existence of other deities and a restoration of the old pantheon followed (a maturation of the proto-rational henotheism which had started in the Middle Kingdom). But besides being before everything (as in the Old Kingdom - cf. Nun & the "zep tepi"), the Great One was now also witnessed in everything. With the exception of Atenism, deemed criminal, a mature monotheistic theology & cult of the Great One cannot be identified in Ancient Egypt religion.

African philosophy : the fact Africa developed a philosophy of its own has only be recently advanced.22 In which way can Ancient Egyptian spirituality, without turning the argument Afrocentric, be seen as a historical culmination of the potential of traditional African philosophy ?

the presence/absence-discourse : in postmodernism, deconstruction has been associated with the unmasking of the tirany of presence (the notion reality can be fixed in words), and is suggestive of the overall activity of absence (the notion truth is partly veiled - cf. Heidegger on "aletheia"). Is Akhenaten a good example of how an overall focus on solitary presence (of the Aten and Pharaoh) leads to disaster ? Does what happened to Akhenaten's Aten religion tell us something about the fanatism, violence, exclusivism and dogmatism of any monotheist logic, as evidenced by the bloody history of the three major monotheisms "of the book" ? Is this one of the reasons for the irrational fascination and abuse of history people accommodate regarding Akhenaten and Nefertiti, as Montserrat (2001) elucidates ?

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1 The New Kingdom and the colossal Amenhotep III

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1.1 A few political features of the New Kingdom : the age of empire.

Amenhotep III

quarzite statue of the "dazzling Sun" - almost 2.5m tall
Politically, the New Kingdom brought internationalization, which defied the particularism of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. From Myceanae, Knossos, Mitanni, Babylon, and from the Hittites, Assyrians, Libyans & Nubians, gifts & trade goods were flowing in. The XVIIIthe & XIXth Dynasties produced great monuments of theocratic statesmanship.

The reign of Amenhotep III (ca. 1390 - 1353 BCE) was a period of stabilty and peace, the foundations of which had been laid by Akhenaten's grandfather, Tuthmosis IV (ca. 1400 - 1930 BCE), who had brought to end decades of military conflict between the two great powers of the area, Egypt and the kingdom of Mitanni, fighting over the control over northern Syria. The court of Amenhotep III became an international center visited by ambassadors of many nations. Even Asiatic deities such as Reshef, Astarte, Baal and Qudshu were worshipped.

In the Book of Gates (Vth Hour), the "wretched" Aziatics, Nubians & Libyans were placed under the protection of Egyptian deities ... Luxurious living in a setting of peace reached its climax under Amenhotep III. He never set foot in his Asiatic empire but acquired princesses for his harem and lavished gold on his allies.

The age of empire did not focus on power, wealth and luxury only. The intellectual horizon had also broadened. Curiosity and tolerance for foreigners rose. Scribes had to be bilingual and foreign languages were fashionable. Especially religious thinking had been affected by this internationalism.

The gods were not only there for Egypt, but for the whole world.

1.2 The great builder, dated Sed-festivals & his traditional piety.

The temple of Luxor, the double temple of Soleb and Sedeinga (Nubia) and the mortuary temple at the West bank of Thebes (destroyed by an Earthquake, leaving the 720 tons Colossi of Memnon, suggesting the original size of the building and Pharaoh's megalomania), identified Amenhotep III as one of the greatest builders Egypt had known. He strove to surpass his predecessors in number, size and spendor of his buildings. He also used unusual building materials like gold, silver, lapis lazuli, jasper, turquoise, bronze and copper and noted the exact weights of each, in order to capture "the weight of this monument".23

As long as there have been Pharaohs, there have been Sed-festivals.24 Already in the first Dynasties (ca. 3000 BCE), Pharaoh ran the course of the festival or sat enthroned in his chapel. The goals of the ritual celebration was the renewal of the power of Pharaoh, thought to have depleted over time, endangering the state (compare this with the prehistorical notion of the sacrificial king found around the globe but also on the African continent). Instead of killing the ruler, it was considered sufficient to effect the symbolical burial of a statue of the "old" king and allow him to repeat his coronation. The ritual course was run before all the deities of the land, showing the renewal of rulership.

In the Middle and New Kingdoms, Pharaoh celebrated this Jubilee before the end of his thirtieth year of rule, and then it was repeated at shorter intervals of three to four years. The connection with his coronation was important. Pharaoh was enthroned in Memphis, and so he wore a special vestment during most of the ceremonies, a mantle-like garment like Ptah (distinguishing statues specially prepared for the festival). So between coronation and ascension, there was this Sed-festival which only Pharaoh could celebrate, nobody else.

"By the thirteenth year of the reign, with Nubia stabilized and the vast empire at peace, Egypt was at the height of its wealth and power. The rule of Amenhotep III saw four decades of prosperity uninterrupted by war ; for the people of Egypt it was a time of unparalleled security and optimism - a golden age presided over by a golden king. To Amenhotep's grateful subjects it must have seemed that this succes proved that he was at one with the gods themselves."
Fletcher, 2000, p.76.

a Libyan, a Canaanite, a Syian and a Nubian bow

XVIIIth Dynasty - Cairo Museum

Amenhotep III celebrated his Sed-festival in his thirtieth regnal year. Many dated inscriptions are preserved on vessels from his palace at el-Malqata, on the West bank of Thebes. He celebrated two repetitions of this festival before his death. Japanese excavations uncovered a podium for a throne. It has thirty steps, which stand for the thirty years that had gone by. The festival was clearly a repetition of the coronation. In it, he called himself "the Dazzling Sun" and at his side his chief wife, Teye, played the role of Hathor, who stood for all aspects of rejuvenation & regeneration. During the festival, Amenhotep III endeavored to gather all the deities of the Two Lands to perform its ceremonies in front of the shrines containing their various divine images ... He is also seen worshipping and offering to himself as a god !

"The importance of the Aten grew throughout Amenhotep III's long reign. In the last decade of his rule the king even officially identified himself as the sun god the Aten."
Fletcher, 2000, p.61.

What we know of Amenhotep III proves he was not an "enlightened" ruler, but instead stayed deeply rooted in traditional piety.25 Although the New Solar Theology was active around him, he prevented this single god (Re) from gaining the upper hand. Large scarabs connect him with numerous deities. The aged & sick Pharaoh (who had received from the king of Mitanni a healing statue of Ishtar) commissioned (instead of asking Ishtar) a total of 730 (2 x 365) statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, the consort of Ptah who dispensed illness and its cure. He set this litany in stone up in various temples at Thebes to protect him day and night. Clearly Amenhotep III did not want to promote Re and his disk, the Aten at the expense of any other known divine power.

"There were definitely tendencies -and not only at the royal court- that ran counter to the New Solar Theology and its elevation of a single god over the entire pantheon in a manner that was altogether too one-sided and, in that respect, un-Egyptian."
Hornung, 1999, p.20.

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2 Prelude to Amarna religion : the "New Solar Theology"

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2.1 The antiquity of the title "Son of Re" in Pharaoh's titulary.

Under the IVth Dynasty (of the Old Kingdom), the priests of Re of Heliopolis consolidated a form of the Sun-god of obscure origin.26 Their influence was strong enough to make the first Pharaoh of the Vth Dynasty (Userkaf - ca. 2487 - 2480 BCE) highpriest of Re and begotten by Re himself. Re had visited the wife of Userra, a highpriest of Re. This could be called the moment when monolatry became an affair of state.

"From the 3th Dynasty we have the evidence for a new emphasis on a single creator, eclipsing the balance between the good Horus and the anarchic Seth. The battles of Horus and Seth do no disappear in the new, classical Egyptian arrangement of divine powers, but they become a smaller part within the general scheme of a single all-powerful creator."
Quirke, 2001, p.83.

Hence, Pharaoh added a fifth name to his four other titulary names, thereby expressing the idea Pharaoh is the human form of Re, i.e. Re begot Pharaoh, who ruled over the whole land of Egypt. These five names of the titulary27 were :

the Horus name : designating Pharaoh as the manifestation of Horus the elder sky god (Horus in the palace, not yet Horus, son of Osiris). The earliest Pharoahs were only named with this Horus name. In the New Kingdom, "Mighty Bull" was added at the beginning, but it was usually quite variable ;

the Nebty name : Nekhbet and Wadjet were the protective goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt respectively (a vulture & a serpent, each atop a basket : "Lady"). These two refer to the duality of Pharaoh's realm, as does "Lord of the Two Lands". These "Two Ladies" correspond to the "Two Lords", the royal gods Horus and Seth ;

the Gold name or Golden Horus name : a falcon atop a beaded collar (gold), but the interpretation of the falcon as Horus is uncertain. The name might refer to the wealth and splendour of Pharaoh (gold was considered to be the "flesh" of the deities) ;

the Throne (prenomen) name : is preceded by the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" and is enclosed by a cartouche (a long oval surrounding the throne name protectively - cf. the amulet). More recent scholarship conjectures it contains a statement regarding Pharaoh and his policies (instead of a theological statement concerning the god). It was compounded with the name of the Sun god Re (including the hieroglyph of the disk of the Sun) ;

the personal (nomen) name : is always accompanied by the epithet : "son of Re". It is the name given to the prince at birth. After coronation is was also enclosed in a cartouche. With it, is affirmed Pharaoh is by birthright a god.

Seldom do all five names appear together on a single royal monument. When only one name was used, the Throne name was the most common.

"From this time onward every king of Egypt, whether of Egyptian origin or not, called himself the 'son of Râ'. In later days, when Amen, or Amen-Râ, became the King of the Gods, it was asserted by his priesthood that the god assumed the human form of a man and begot the king of Egypt."
Budge, 1989, p.33, my italics.

2.2 The theology of the Sun, of light and movement.

In the course of the XVIIIth Dynasty (ca. 1539 - 1292 BCE), the Sun god Re was turned into an all-embracing creator-god, manifesting himself under various names & forms. The Books of What is in the Duat (the netherworld, "Unterwelt", "monde inférieur" or Rilke's "Weltinnenraum") were the new guides to the hereafter (cf. Amduat). Contrary to the Book of the Dead which was a development of the Coffin Texts, it was a new, foremost royal literary genre (even absent from the tombs of the queens). The Book of the Dead continued to be an ever-changing collections of spells, but these religious books had a permanent content. The nocturnal, otherworldly forms of the Sun god, and their effect in the netherworld, was the focus of these books. They furnished "the ordering and creative principles for the spaces in the hereafter"28 and hence deal with the nocturnal regeneration of the Sun, implying that on the far side of death renewal is at work and that the netherworld is the "interior of the sky". The early books arrange the nightly course of the Sun in twelve hours, with the Solar Bark in the center of each hour. Later, this Bark disappears, and Re is indicated by a red Sun disk, which remains absent from the damned.

In his Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom (1995) and The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (2001) Assmann defines the "New Solar Theology" as :

"... the explication and representation of the course of the sun in the non-constellative categories of explicit theology. (...) The New Solar Theology arose as a cognitive iconoclasm that rejected the entire mythic, pictoral world of polytheistic thought. All its basic principles can be understood as theological explications of cosmic phenomena, specifically the sun, its light, and its movement."
Assmann, 2001, p.201.

The Theban god Amun and the pure Re aspect of the Sun god were akin, for both were understood to be the supreme being, the primeval god, the creator god and the god of life. The Theban theology of the early New Kingdom tried to formulate a theology of Amun-Re which would be comprehensive enough to include the traditions of both Amun and Re. By accumulation and juxtaposition their various features were combined. So the Theban theology of the XVIIIth Dynasty is a continuation of the search for a henotheist articulation of the divine, which had been initiated in the Middle Kingdom. It is also the starting point of the quest for a new concept of the divine (not only "before" everything, but also "in" every thing).29

Different texts evidence this search. For example, consider the Hymns to Amun-Re and the tomb stela of the architects Suti and Hor from the reign of Amenhotep III.30 In these two Hymns to the Sun god, these twin brothers gave a prominent place to the Aten, the physical disk of the Sun. The major themes of Amarna religion are to be found : the Sun, its light and its movement.

"Self-made you fashioned your body,
Creator uncreated.
Sole one, unique one, who traverses eternity.
Remote one, with millions under his care ;
your splendor is like heaven's splendor,
your color brighter than its hues.
When you cross the sky all faces see you,
When you set you are hidden from their sight ;
Daily you give yourself at dawn,
Safe is your sailing under your majesty.
In a brief day you race a course,
Hundred thousands, millions of miles ;
A moment is each day to you,
It has passed when you go down. (...)
When you set in the western mountain,
They sleep as in the state of death."
Suti & Hor : Hymn to the Sun god, Stela British Museum 826, translated by : Lichtheim, 1976, p.87.

In this hymn, most of the elements which became prominent in Amarna religion are present before Akhenaten implemented the final consequences of his reflections on the divine. This New Solar Theology is not an early form of Amarna religion, for these texts "pick up after the Amarna Period at exactely the point at which this new development had been interrupted by Akhenaten's upheaval and continued down until nearly the end of the history of Egyptian religion, side by side with texts expressing the rehabilitated constellative theology of the course of the sun."31

That besides the Sun god no other divinities could be tolerated is the original step taken by Akhenaten. Hence, not so much the contents of his message was original and heretic, but rather the politico-religious form in which he poured it (a royal monotheism based on the exclusive nature of the king) as well as the radical way he implemented it (cf. the brutal destruction of the cults and the eradication of the name of Amun).

"The New Solar Theology stood, and understood itself, in the context of the other deities. By way of an example, the frame of the stela of the two architects contains offering prayers to, among others, Hathor, Khons, Mut, Amun-Re, Anubis and the God's Wife Ahmes-Nefertari. Though other deities no longer participated in the course of the sun, they were nevertheless there, and their mere existence stood in the way of a total demythologizing and disenchantment of the world."
Assmann, 2001, p.208.

2.3 the naturalization of the divine in religious experience

The core of this New Solar Theology has been identified by Assmann as a cognitive iconoclasm which replaced the mythicizing world view with the visible course of the Sun, its light and movement (heliomorphism).

This demythologizing and subsequent disenchantment comes about by eliminating these elements of religious experience which can not be brought back to the natural course of events. In fact, as there is no divine presence other than the light of the Aten, "we stand here at the treshold less of the monotheistic universal religions than of natural philosophy, and had this religion won out, we might have expected a Thales rather than a Moses."32

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colos of Amenhotep IV

Gem-pa-Aten temple at East Karnak
"the Aten is found" - Cairo Museum

3 The Rise of Akhenaten

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3.1 Again Pharaoh's titulary.

Did Amenhotep III reign with his son ? A long coregency of the two Pharaohs is excluded.33 In fact, for a long time, the prince could have entertained little hope that he would ever mount the throne of his ancestors, for his brother prince Tuthmosis had been recognized as the heir of Amenhotep III and as such filled the office of Governor of Memphis and High Priest of its god Ptah. But he died young for unknown reasons (in year 27, ca. 1365 BCE).

The royal titulary may be seen as the program of a reign.

At his ascent (ca. 1353 BCE), the Throne name adopted by Amenhotep IV was : "Nefer-kheperu-Re Waenre" (or : "perfect are the manifestations of Re, sole one of Re"). He never changed this.

His first sanctuary (a temple-complex) rose at Karnak. Extensive work has revealed tens of thousands of building blocks from a variety of structural elements, as whole temple walls. At the outset of his reign, large blocks were used, whereas later the new sanctuaries of Aten were built from small, easily carried sandstone blocks which were one handbreadth in height and two in width ("talatat" or "three"-blocks). One of the sanctuaries seems to have been reserved for Pharaoh's wife Nefertiti ("the beautiful one has come") depicted as carrying out cultic activities which are normally performed by Pharaoh. Five years later, he would stop adorn Thebes with temples for the Aten.

Amenhotep IV did not dedicate this complex at Karnak to Amun-Re, the "king of the gods" and cultic lord of the temple, but to the Sun god as viewed by the priests of Heliopolis, namely Re-Herakhty ("Re-Horus of the Two Horizons") also called "Aten" and understood as the dwelling-place of Shu (Aten had been used to indicate the physical Sun and now received worship as a deity). This "new god" which Akhenaten's teaching initiated, was given a formal (dogmatic, didactical) name : "Re-Herakhty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu, who is Aten".

Re-Herakhty was worshipped in his traditional form of the heroic god. In the Old Kingdom, Herakhty had been venerated in On (Iunu, Heliopolis) as "Horus of the Two Horizons". He was represented as a falcon bearing the Uraeus-encircled solar disk on his vertex. He is the Sun god emerging at dawn, sovereign of the sky and knower of the holy places where the blessed souls abide.

"The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for Re.
That he may cross on them to the horizon.
The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for Herakhti.
That Herakhti may cross on them to Re."
Pyramid Texts, utterance 263 (§ 337).

Horus of the Two Horizons, combined Re and Horus, and as Re-Herakhty, the translation "king of the sky" is also applicable. This god is a solarized Horus, symbolizing the emergent, dawning power of the fully rejuvenated & regenerated Solar deity, an eternal, beautiful youth. Herakhty was associated with the East, Re with the West. Together, they were "Horus of the two Horizons", as Akhenaten would insist.

In early inscriptions, Akhenaten still appeared before Amun-Re in the traditional manner. On a scarab in the British Museum, he is designated as the one "whom Amun-Re chose from among millions" !

The reference to Shu can be understood as follows :

in the cosmogonies of the Old Kingdom, Shu & Tefnut are the first two deities to belong to the created order (Atum emerges and simultaneously creates Shu & Tefnut) and without this division between heaven and Earth (by the air between them) nothing would have come forth ;

in the Coffin Texts, Shu (the word "shu" means "light-filled air"), the god of air, "makes it light after the darkness" ;

the Aten or Sun disk is the dwelling-place of Shu (with the rays of its disk, the Sun clarifies the division made by Shu, division which is the necessary condition for anything to exist).

In the third year of his reign, Akhenaten also enclosed the didactical name of the Aten in a cartouche, as if it were part of the royal titulary. From the third to the fifth regnal year, he carried out a vast "Aten-project" or a formidable and thorough reorganization in religion, art, language, cult administration, economy etc. (in year 4, the high priest of Amun was literally sent "into the desert" and priest were reindoctrinated).

In the fifth year, the new Residence, Akhetaten ("Horizon of the Aten") is a gigantic construction site. The project was never really finished (Pharaoh was unusually depicted with a hammer in his hand), but in the fifth or sixth year, Amenhotep IV changed his royal titulary.34

Horus name : changed from "Strong Bull of the Double Plumes" to "Strong Bull, Beloved (or lover) of Aten" ;

Nebty name : changed from "Great of Kingship in Karnak" to "Great of Kingship in Khut-Aten" (his newly founded residence of Akhetaten) ;

Gold name : from "Crowned in Heliopolis of the South" (Thebes) to "Exalter of the Name of Aten" ;

Throne name : the core of the name : "Nefer-kheperu-re Waenre" or : "perfect are the manifestations of Re, the sole one of Re" remained unaltered but he added "Living by Maat" ;

personal (nomen) name : from "Amenhotep god-ruler of Thebes" to "He who is useful to Aten, Radiance of Aten or Glory of Aten". In Egyptian, "Akhenaten" sounded something like "Akhanyati" 35

These changes were recorded on a boundary stelæ of year 6 (fourth month of winter, day 13) :

"The living Horus : Strong Bull beloved of Aten ; Two Ladies : Great of Kingship in Aten ; Gold-Horus : Who exalts the name of Aten ; the King of Upper and Lower Egypt who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands : Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re ; the Son of Re who lives by Maat, the Lord of crowns : Akhenaten, great in his lifetime, given life forever."
Akehenaten : Later Boudary Stelæ, at El-Amarna, translated by : Lichtheim, 1976, p.49, italics are cartouched.

Akhenaten made fourteen stelæ to record his founding of the new City of Light, Akhet-Aten ('the horizon of the Aten"). First three boundary stelæ were carved into the limestone cliffs on the East bank, at the northern & southern ends of the town. Later eleven more were cut into the cliffs, eight on the East and three on the West bank. The actual city lay only on the East bank, where the cemeteries are also to be found. He never did anything on the West bank, so the traditional "beautiful West" (the realm of the dead) played no role. The eleven stelæ bear one basic text with some additions and variations.

His traditional titles remained, but he used to style himself "the beautiful child of the living Aten". About four years later, the Aten too received a new royal titulary. The names Horus and Shu were removed from the new double cartouche, leaving only Aten and Re. The new "didactic" name or credo became : "Re-ruler-of-the-twin-horizons, who rejoices in the horizon in his name as Re-the-father-who-returns-as-Aten." 36

These changes point to one direction only : the variety of appellations are avoided to the advantage of a single, unique deity : Re as the Aten. All associations with Amun (theological as wel as political) are eliminated. Also Atum is avoided, for this would associate creation too much with the first time ("zep tepi") and the chaotic realm before creation (Nun). Of this, no mention is made for there is no divine presence other than light.

There are reasons to believe Akhenaten inaugurated the royal status of the Aten with the celebration of a Sed-festival (however not in Akhetaten). A representation is not enough proof, for even Akhenaten is represented felling enemies without having undertaken a single military campaign. However, although his father Amenhotep III had invited all the deities in the land to celebrate with him, Akhenaten is represented as striding from shrine to shrine, each containing only the Aten, depicted as the Sun disk with its life-giving rays. All plurality is reduced to the singular.37

The following choices point in the same direction :

in Thebes, beginning as "Amenhotep", he erects a temple for Re-Herakhty, favouring light (Re) and the mystical place of its emerging (the horizon or "akhet") ;

the new nomen name "Akhenaten" combines the notion of "efficiency" and "spirituality" (both "akh") with that of divine physical light (Aten). Pharaoh is a divine spirit who is effective for the Aten ;

his great monument, and proof of power, is a new capital, a new city of Akhetaten, where all aspects of the new creation may be combined as in the horizon or "akhet" of the Aten ;

the linguistic nearness between "akh" and "akhet" is used to convey the effectiveness of the power of the Eastern horizon, the mystical locus of the dawn of a new creation.

3.2 The grotesque Pharaoh, permanent dynamism & intimacy.

The colossal statues in the Gem-pa-Aten temple are the earliest evidence of a change of artistic style. Egyptologists described them often in pejorative terms : Champollion employed the term "morbidezza" or softness, Wiedemann found the representations "in a frightfully ugly form, caricature", Wolf said the style invoked a "sick ugliness and nervous decadence", whereas Schäfter thought that he wanted to shock with his repulsive ugliness.

"Everything that had been static, fixed in place for eternity, is now set in motion. Vertical axes become diagonal, stressed by receding foreheads and elongated crowns. (...) movement characterized the playful, caressing intimacy of the royal family, which is depicted in lively group scenes, and the fluttering bands of cloth that dangle from clothes, crowns, and articles of furniture."
Hornung, 1999, p.44, my italics.

As soon as Pharaoh Akhenaten had changed his religion and his name, he also changed his own form and figure. In the earlier monuments, he still had retained some of the typical features of his father and his ancestors, but in Akhetaten (Tell el-'Amarna) his physical appearence totally changed too. His head was portrayed with a very high, narrow and receding forehead, with a large, sharp, aquiline nose, a weak, thin mouth and a large chin. This head was set upon a long, slender neck. Round chest, inflated stomack, large & broad thighs ... in many ways resembling a woman.

"Their common denominator is a symbolic gathering of all attributes of the creator-god into the physical body of the king himself. The Aten subsumes into itself all the different gods who create and maintain the universe, and the king is the living image of the Aten on earth. He can therefore display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions. These are represented through a set of signifiers that seem mutually contradictory to modern viewers, such as the appearance of female and male physical characteristics on the same statue, but made sense to the intended Egyptian audience. These attributes render the king literally superhuman, a divine body which goes beyond human experience."
Montserrat, 2001, p.48.

So-called "Amarna Art" has been compared with schools of Modern Art using a free form. Schäfter saw "expressionism" at work, as did Scharff. Montserrat (2001) doubts whether it is possible to compare Amarna with European currents and styles. Perhaps it is better to mark how it differs from the Egyptian canon ? For Hornung, this new style was a rebellion against the classical ideal of the XVIIIth dynasty.38

hand of Akhenaten

limestone example of the innovative style of Amarna

Driven by his interest in dynamic process, Akhenaten as it were returned to the perennial idea behind the representation of the sign of "god" ("nTr" or "neter" pronounced "netjer") as a flagpole with two to four ribbons attached to the top and hence able to float in the air (representations show how, at the entrance of Akhenaten's Great Temple of the Aten at Amarna -760m long by 290m wide-, there were ten flagpoles instead of the eight of Karnak). This crucial sign acquired its definitive form as early as the Old Kingdom, starting with the IIIth Dynasty (ca. 2670 - 2600 BCE), with strips around the complete pole (like a mummy) attached by a cord with its extremity projecting outwards like a ribbon.39 The association with movement is evident and consistent with the Heliopolitan cosmogony, focusing on the emergence of Atum out of Nun as Shu, the god of air who separated Earth and sky, and the return to the "first occurrence" ("neheh"-time or eternal recurrence). Early in his reign, Akhenaten identified with Atum and Re-Horakethy (cf. Gem-pa-Aten temple in East Karnak), but soon he avoided all associations invoking the teachings of the netherworld of Osiris and the "first time" of the autogenous Atum and Nun. Indeed, Amarna theology intends no hiddenness, darkness or inertia (cf. infra).

Earlier scenes of deities and their mythological contexts were replaced by family scenes, in which all six daughters of Akhenaten & Nefertiti appeared. Because of the life-giving force of the Aten, the love existing in this "holy family" is portrayed intimately & emphatically. The children caress one another and are tended with affection by their parents, sitting on their lap ...This intimacy is exceptional and clearly innovative.

hands of statue of Akhenaten & Nefertiti

red quartzite - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Along with movement, we also see scenes of kissing, embracing, caressing, mourning & nursing among the royal family. They represented, with previously unthinkable freedom, the love emanating from the Aten who strove for the togetherness of his creatures. This does not mean his artists were free to do what they wanted, for more than likely Pharaoh himself established the new artistic canon. Even the size of the represented individuals did not depend any longer on their relative importance within the scene (sometimes Pharaoh is depicted as smaller than his workers !).

We may speak of "Amarna culture", for Akhenaten also elevated the spoken language of the New Kingdom into a new written language (Late Egyptian). In Late Egyptian, the verbal system (coordinating the expression of movement) changed. It replaced Middle Egyptian developed at the end of the Old Kingdom. Although Middle Egyptian remained the religious & royal language, Late Egyptian literature arose soon after Akhenaten's reign.

3.3 The singularity of divine mediation : Aten - King - Queen.

The Aten as the light of the Sun keeps the world alive. He creates the world again and again and this continually. The original creation of the world was not discussed, for Nun had to be avoided. Everlastingness (Nun, Osiris) was not the focus, but eternal recurrence (Atum, Re). The underworld, the nocturnal stride of Re, the defeat of Apopis, the bark of Re and the kingdom of Osiris were all ousted. The royal status of the Aten was promulgated with rigor, for the Aten had a royal titulary, wore an uræus and celebrated Sed-festivals !

So Akhenaten viewed the Aten, his father, as his Pharaoh. This Aten was more than just one of the deities. Never did the new god take the place of individual deities like Amun. Rather, the Aten took the place of the divine realm as a whole, with light as his "immanence", however with the exclusion of the hidden, the netherworld and the "zep tepi", the first time emerging in the Nun with the self-creation of Atum.

On the other hand, Pharaoh was co-substantially one with his father, the Aten. Previously, the title "son of Re" had been stressing the divine & filial origin of Pharaoh, but Akhenaten went further. This can be read in the Book of Gates, which may have been written during the Amarna Period.

In the 8th Hour, we read the following remarkable articulation of the co-substantial unity between Atum and Re : "I am the son who emerged from his father, I am the father who emerged from his son."40 Both are of the "same substance" (cf. the problem of the "homo(i)ousia" of Christ and the Heavenly Father in Christian theology more than fifteen centuries later !). Between the Aten and Akhenaten, the same co-substantiality existed as between the Christian God and His unique Son Christ.

This co-substantiality implied the Aten (as father) was not accessible to anyone but to Akhenaten (as his unique son). And so, Akhenaten (as father) was the personal god of the individual (as adoptive son Akhenaten). Hence, in Amarna religion, piety was a relationship between the Aten and Pharaoh (father versus son) on the one hand, and between Pharaoh and the people on the other hand. Pharaoh set out on processions, performed signs and wonders, and intervened in the destiny of the individual. He was the Great Father of the World. A clear return to the "cannibalistic" powers Pharaoh had in the Old Kingdom.

Hence, the mystical aspect of the religious continuum, part of a proto-rational mode of thought prone to naturalization and universalization, was projected (as it was in the Old Kingdom in a mythical, pre-rational and polytheistic context) on the person of Pharaoh. Total dependence implied personal piety consisted exclusively in absolute loyalty to Pharaoh, to Akhenaten as a divine person, an ego as sole god. In the Amarna Letters, his servants were often compared with the dirt under the feet of Pharaoh, and to fall at his feet was common practice.41

"Say to the king, my lord, my Sun, my god :
'Message of Zitriyara, your servant,
the dirt under your feet, and the mire you tread on.
It fall at the feet of the king, my lord, my Sun, my god.'
7 times and 7 times, both on the stomack and on the back."
Moran, 1992, p.283.

In the hymn of the architects Suti and Hor, the Sun god is called "mother of humans and deities". Akhenaten himself was often named "Nile of Egypt", embodying the annual inundation and the goods of nature. He is also called "mother who bears all". This role of the female element does not belong to the periphery, neither is it of a purely political importance. Although she was never officially co-regent, Akhenaten saw in his wife Nefertiti a goddess.

As Assmann has rightly pointed out, the Old Kingdom triad : Atum - Shu - Tefnut shines through.42 Early in his reign Pharaoh Akhenaten wore the four-feathered crown of Shu (cf. the colossal statues at Karnak). The triad : Aten - Akhenaten - Nefertiti was represented on the stelæ of household altars and object of household cults & private devotions. In no other way was the Aten accessible to the individual. Pharaoh and his queen prayed to the Aten and the people prayed to the triad. Piety as placing a deity "in one's heart" was reserved for Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

What a reduction of the possible spiritual mediators ! Officially, all other deities were rejected. The Aten of Akhenaten was not only above them (with what is unknown revealed to his son, who had the Aten in his heart), but also and foremost against them. Furthermore, no sacred priesthood was put in place which could serve as valid replacement of the holy trinity. Only the latter could guarantee the commoners anything. And ... Akhenaten probably had no sons.

It was this singularity of divine mediation which lies at the root of Akhenaten's failure to establish a religion which would last longer than his reign. Is it probable he thought the Aten would provide for a son to continue his work ? His wives only gave birth to six daughters. As a result, when Akhenaten died, there was no direct line assuring the continuity of what had been realized. The fact of the exclusivity of the Aten (returning much later as the exclusive light, path and truth of the Messiah Jesus Christ) being the theo-ontological complement of this.

photo after Hari, 1985, plate XXVI.

Great Hymn

to the Aten

by Akhenaten

ca. 1353 - 1336 BCE

In the Tomb of Ay

West Wall

the long 13 text columns begin at the top of the wall and below it are

kneeling figures of Ay and his wife

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the green text was added by the author, italics are cartouched
the present text made use of the hieroglyphic text (751KB) and recent translations
because of its special nature, "akhet" (horizon) is translated as "lightland"

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Preface :

"Adoration of Re-Horakhty-who-rejoices-in-the-lightland,
In-his-name-Shu-who-is-the-Aten, living forever ;
the great living Aten, who is in jubilee,
Lord of all that the Disk surrounds,
Lord of the Sky, Lord of the Earth,
Lord of the House-of-the-Aten in Akhet-Aten.

Adoration of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt,
who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands,
Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,
the Son of Re who lives by Maat, Lord of Crowns,
Akhenaten, great in his lifetime
and of the beloved great Queen,
Lady of the Two Lands : Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti,
who lives in health and youth forever !

The Vizier,
the Fanbearer on the right of the King (...)
he says :

The Hymn :

I) THE ATEN AS RE WITH HIS COURSE

morning beauty

1 Splendid You rise in the lightland of the sky,
2 O living Aten, creator of life !
3 You have dawned in the eastern lightland.
4 You fill every land with your beauty.

noon dominion

5 You are beauteous, mighty & radiant.
6 Risen high over every land,
7 your rays embrace the lands,
to the limit of all that You made.
8 Being Re, You reach their end.
9 You bend them for your beloved son.
10 Though You are far, your rays are on Earth.
11 Though seen by them, your course is unknown.

night chaos

12 When You set in the western lightland,
13 Earth is in darkness, as if death.
14 The sleepers are in their chambers, heads covered,
no eye seeing the other.
15 One could steal their goods from under their heads,
they would not notice it.
16 Every lion comes from its den.
The serpents bite.
17 Darkness hovers, Earth is silent.
18 For its creator rests in the lightland.

dawn rebirth

19 At dawn You have risen in the lightland.
20 To shine as the Aten of daytime !
21 You dispel the dark and cast your rays.
22 The Two Lands celebrate daily.
23 Awake they stand on their feet.
You have made them get up.
24 They wash and dress, their arms raised
in adoration to your appearance.
25 The entire land sets out to work.
26 All cattle are satisfied with their fodder.
The trees and the grass become green.
27 Birds fly from their nests, their wings praising your Ka.
28 All game animals frisk on their hooves, all that fly and flutter,
29 live when You dawn for them.
30 Ships fare downstream and back upstream,
roads lie open when You rise.
31 The fish in the river dart before You.
32 Your rays penetrate the Great Green deep.

II) WORKS & NATURE OF THE ATEN

the child

33 O You, who make semen grow in women,
34 who creates people from sperm,
35 who feeds the son in his mother's womb,
36 who soothes him to still his tears.
37 You nurse in the womb !
38 Giver of breath to nourish all creatures.
39 When the child emerges from the womb
to breathe on the day of his birth,
You open wide his mouth to supply his needs.

the chicken

40 The chick in the egg, chirping in the shell,
41 You give it breath within to sustain its life.
42 When it is complete, it breaks out from the egg.
43 It emerges from the egg, to say it is complete.
44 Walking on its legs when emerging.

the Aten as doer : un-saying, solitary, omnipotent

45 How many are your deeds,
46 though hidden from sight.
47 O sole God without equal !
48 You made the Earth as You desired, You alone.
49 With people, cattle, and all creatures.
50 With everything upon Earth that walks on legs,
51 and all that is on high and flies with its wings.

the Two Niles : the Aten as national, international and
transnational governor

52 The foreign lands of Syria and Nubia, and the land of Egypt,
53 You set everybody in his place and supply their needs.
54 They all have their food and their lifetimes are counted.
55 Tongues differ in speech, their characters as well.
56 Their skins are distinct, for You distinguished the peoples.

57 You made the Nile in the Netherworld.
58 You bring it up when You will,
to keep those of Egypt alive,
for You have created them for yourself.

59 Lord of All who toils for them.
60 Lord of All Lands who shines for them.
61 O Aten of daytime, great in glory !

62 All distant lands, You make them live.
63 You made a heavenly Nile descend for them.
64 With waves beating on the mountains like the sea,
to drench their fields and their towns.

65 How excellent are your ways, O Lord of Eternity !
66 The Nile from heaven for foreign peoples
and all land-creatures that walk on legs.
67 For Egypt the Nile from the Duat.

III) THEOLOGY OF THE ATEN

life-giving nature of the Aten

68 Your rays nurse all fields.
69 When You shine they live, they grow for You.
70 You made the seasons,
so that all that You made may come to life.
71 Winter cools them, and heat makes them sense You.

the Aten is sole witness, sole creator & sole presence

72 You created the sky far away in order to ascend to it,
to witness everything You created.
73 You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.
74 Risen, radiant, distant and near.
75 You made millions of forms from yourself alone :
cities, towns, fields, the river's course.
76 All eyes see You above them
as the Aten of the daytime on high.
77 When You are gone, (...) your eye is gone (...)
which You have made (?) {for their sake}

Pharaoh as the exclusive mediator of the Aten

78 But even then You are in my heart
79 and there is no other who knows You,
only your son, Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,
whom You have taught your ways and your might.

80 The ones on Earth come into being by your hand,
in the way You made them.
81 When You rise, they live.
82 When You set, they die.
83 You yourself are lifetime itself,
one lives through You.
84 All eyes rest on beauty until You set.
85 All labor ceases when You rest in the West.

86 When You rise, You make all arms firm for the King,
87 every leg is on the move since You founded the Earth,
88 You rouse them for your son, who emerged from your body.
89 The King who lives by Maat,
the Lord of the Two Lands :
Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,
the Son of Re who lives by Maat,
the Lord of Crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime.
90 And the great Queen whom he loves,
the Lady of the Two Lands :
Nefer-neferu-Aten Nefertiti,
who lives and is rejuvenated forever and ever."

In what follows the "Aten-project" is analyzed from four perspectives : the cultic, the nomic, the cosmic & the mystic.

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4 The Aten-project

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► CULTIC : dictatorial eradications & an imposed religion

4.1 The brutal end of previous worship, especially of Amun.

"... Egyptian cult is not to be understood as communication between the human and divine realms, but as an act of communication that took place purely in the divine realm, with priests playing the roles of deities in the framework of set constellations."
Assmann, 2001, p.156.

At the time (or just a little later) when Akhenaten changed the didactical name of the Aten, he took the most radical step an Egyptian Pharaoh would ever make. The removal of Horus and Shu preluded, in principle, the end of all worship in the land not dedicated to the Aten ! Akhenaten was the first "founder" of a religion who had all the power of the state at his disposal to implement his revolution. Although he did not succeed, he went about in unseen ways.

His efforts implied the physical obliteration of the old deities by the erasure of their names and sometimes of their pictoral representation as well. An unseen iconoclasm ! Especially Amun and his consort Mut were targeted, but it sporadically affected other deities as well. The plural writing of the word "god" was rejected too. Thoth (the god of magic) was not touched and the persecution was not consistent.

"We must imagine that the suppression of the old cults was not altogether consistent in the distant provinces, and that Thebes surely was a special case. (...) The discovery of figurines of traditional deities in the houses at Amarna is significant. They must stem from a time when these deities were officially persecuted, thus testifying to their continuing, albeit secret, worship ; at the same time, they touch on the area of magic, which was totally excluded from official religion in the Amarna Period."
Hornung, 1999, pp.86 and 111.

But the name of Amun was erased from the lettes of the diplomatic archive, scarabs, tips of obelisks & pyramids and even his own former name "Amenhotep" was mutilated. Akhenaten wanted to destroy Amun's role as "refuge of the poor", for only the holy triad could guarantee the individual anything.

"The founding of the religion must have been all the more shocking in that Akhenaten proceeded with unprecedented brutality. The new religion was not promoted, it was imposed. Tradition was not questioned, it was persecuted and forbidden. (...) To appreciate the tremendous and consciousness altering significance of these steps, we must bear in mind that this new religion did not make its appearance in a situation of competing doctrines of religious salvation or general lack of orientation, but rather set itself against plain reality and reduced it to an excluded alternative."
Assmann, 2001, pp.199-200.

4.2 New open temples with no statues, roofs or holy of holies.

The new temples erected by the king were totally different than what places of worship had been before. The Amarga religion had no cult statues, for the only form of the Sun god was the Aten, the physical disk of the Sun. Indwelling was done away with. Representations were in sunk relief and depicted the royal couple. The Aten is a disk with a bulge, suggestive of a sphere or globe. Rays emanate downward, ending in hands from which an Ankh-sign hangs, i.e. "giving life". They extend to Pharaoh and his queen, for they were no mere mortals, and were considered to receive the blessings from the Aten directly and then pass them on to their followers, who worshipped them.

the Royal Family adoring the Aten

panel in painted limestone - Tell el-Amarna, royal tombs

Before Amarna, temples were a shrine for the hidden cult image of a deity. Aside from the radiant Sun, the Aten had no image, and so the whole world was his shrine. As the only way to reach the Aten was through prayers and offerings to the holy family (who's central figures were part of the holy triad), no purification, anointment and clothing of the divine image were longer necessary (the daily service stopped). The new artistic style (movement & intimacy) was coupled with a new kind of architecture : the temple at Amarna remained sheltered by high walls from the outside but was open from above to the light of the Sun. The doorways had broken lintels and the processional way through the middle of the columned halls was unroofed. To reduce shadows doorways had raised thresholds. Every cultic act took place under the radiant Sun. That this caused some Assyrian messengers to die in the Sun was only acceptible for the Assyrian king if it profited Akhenaten.

"Why should messengers be made to stay constantly out in the sun and so die in the sun ? If staying out in the sun means profit for the king, then let the messenger stay out and let him die right there in the sun, but for the king himself there must be a profit. Or otherwise, why should they die in the sun ? As to the messengers we have exchanged (...) do they keep my messengers alive ? They are made to die in the sun !"
Moran, 1992, p.39.

Aerial view of the Central City

the darker are at the bottom is the western edge

Because of this abundance of light, sunk reliefs were used even in the interior of the buildings. There was no need for a remote & dark holy of holies for the cult image of the deity made of costly materials. At dawn, the Aten filled the temple completely and that was his exclusive presence, except for his son Akhenaten, who was the only one to know his father and secure a place for him in his heart.

4.3 Flowers as the perferred offering.

The life-giving and life-sustaining hands of the Aten were everywhere. They could take hold of offerings everywhere they touched. The altars were overfilled with food and although there were still sacrificial offerings of cattle & geeze (the Aten temple had its own slaughterhouse), the offerings were decked with flowers, the preferred offering, still accompanied by the singing of hymns and by incense and music.

4.4 New dynamical representations : globe, Ankh, chariot.

The abolition of all cult statues was radical. The only representation made of the Aten was the shining, radiant globe with its hands extending downwards, giving life to everything touched.

The Ankh became the sign which represented the life-force of the Aten. The holy family riding on a chariot (introduced by the Hyksos, the "foreign kings") on which the Aten poured its rays being the crucial synthetical image of Amarna religion and its accent on movement and change, so typical for the Sun in its daily course (it replaced the barque processions on festival days).

the Royal Family in a Chariot and blessed by the Aten
after Davies, 1905, plate 32A

► NOMIC : radical naturalization of the "old" religion

4.5 Only Aten is divine and there is no god but Aten.

Akhenaten "found" the Aten by discovering the world's dependence on light, to be understood as the foundational principle of his Amarna religion. All could be derived from it and it embraced everything. In the early years, this was put down in the formula "me qedef" or "there is none like him". In the rock tombs of El Amarna we find "wepu heref" or "there is no other but him". Likewise, Pharaoh was "unique like Aten, there being no other great one but him" (cf. tomb of Aya). In the Great Hymn we read that : "O sole god without equal !" (notice the absolutely singular use of "netjer"). The Aten had no enemies, no rivals and no spouse. He had only one son (who had none !).

With his insistence on one god, by affirming that there is no other god than the Aten and that Akhenaten is his messenger, Akhenaten came formally very close to the core of radical monotheism, as we find it rationally expressed in the Koran (cf. "tawhîd"). However, by stressing the physical light of the Sun, he content-wise limited the scope of his metaphysical outlook on the divine. For in the Koran, Allah is both King of the seen and the unseen (cf. Sufism). In the Recital, the idea of Pharaoh's divinity is also radically rejected (this being the main reason why in the Koran the wickedness of the king of Egypt is stressed so much as well as the insistence that Jesus Christ was not the son of God, Allah being without a second).

However, in the explicit theological ideas which emerged after Amarna (during the Ramesside Period), a more all-comprehensive outlook came to the fore, which coupled the irreversible cognitive decentration & re-equilibration posed by Amarna culture (denaturalization and focus on the oneness of the Aten) with the mythical, pre-rational contexts of the old religion, for Amarna religion had literary denuded the mythologies of the old religion, i.e. the indwelling pantheon of the Old & Middle Kingdoms (nomes + state gods & their spouses, eventually assimilated by Osiris -the king of the dead- & Amun-Re -the king of the gods-).

By strictly focusing on the visible and by removing his seal of royal approval from the old religion, Akhenaten had generated a massive trauma which explains why eighty years after his reign he was totally forgotten till the start of modern egyptology (cf. repression in the psychoanalytical views of Freud). This focus on the visible is also the main reason why this extremely remarkable Aten-project failed.

"The Amarna episode came to be completely forgotten within about eighty years, but the experience was traumatic enough to produce legendary traditions which -because of their unlocatability in the official cultural memory- became free-floating and thus susceptible to being associated with a variety of semantically related experience. They formed a 'crypt' in the cultural memory of Egypt."
Assmann, 1997, p.216.

4.6 Life-giving light is the only divine Presence.

The indwelling of the gods & goddesses was done with. Instead, an incarnational view was promoted. It was coupled with presence, the natural order of light and the unique divine son of the Aten. The Aten first and foremost manifested as the life-giving light. Because Akhenaten was the masculine pole of the Amarna Trinity, he alone was the son of the Aten, and his queen was his first beloved.

In this sense, the Amarna religion offers a very good example of the exclusivity of presence. Distinctions appear when light dawns, otherwise all is opaque as death. If we look for a definite trace of mythological thought in the naturalized Amarna Solar theology, we may find it in the eternalization of the mystery of the moment of dawn (& dusk), rejoiced by all creatures. However, by identifying the diurnal phase of the daily cycle of the Sun (actually the rotation of the Earth around its pole) with the universal deity, Amarna theology was incapable of dealing with the major concern of the Ancient Egyptians : a good afterlife. The nocturnal phase was not thematized. The netherworld and Osiris were left out of the picture, although the Duat was mentioned. The Aten "rested" in the West and as it were immediately "dawned" in the East, from "horizon" to "horizon".

4.7 Pharaoh is the only one with the Aten in his heart.

Akhenaten is the son of the Aten, his father. He alone knows him. Nobody else does. This exclusivity of the mediation is the second reason why the Aten-project failed. What would happen after Akhenaten left this world ? He would continue to exist in the City of Light for the realm of the dead lay in Akhetaten. So living in the City of Light or being dead were conceived as being identical. What came after death would be an exact copy of the conditions in which one already was. Hence death played no role whatsoever. The afterlife was here already. These teachings must have caused anxiety in the hearts of many Egyptians, used to associate the nocturnal phase with the netherworld and the regeneration of the Solar power (invoking the first time). Scepticism regarding the afterlife became a new literary genre.

"Where are their places ? Their walls have collapsed,
their places do not exist, as though they had never been made.
No one comes from there to describe their condition
and give tidings of their needs
and calm our hearts
until we, too, arrive where they have gone."
Inyotef : Song, Papyrus Harris 500 (BM 10060), 19th dynasty, cited by Hornung, 1999, p.103.

► COSMIC : only light, presence and movement

4.8 Light without darkness.

Akhenaten removed all associations with pre-creation and the "zep tepi" :

"Re-Herakhty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu, who is Aten".
At his ascension he identified his god as Re-Herakhty, associated with the East and the rising Sun (cf. Karnak complex). Akhenaten poses as Atum and gives his god the name "Shu", the god who separates Earth & sky and who maintains their division. The root of his name probably means "the void", "to raise oneself" or "to raise something". With this dogmatic statement, he was initiating a new era, raising his new god to the throne of unique, universal deity. But not without making a statement connecting the whole enterprise with the old pantheon and the grand ideals projected on the Old Kingdom and its theology, especially Heliopolitan theology ;

"Re, the ruler of the twin horizons, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Re as the father who returns as Aten."
When the City of Light was under construction and major reforms were underway, Amenhotep IV changed his name and later the didactic name of the Aten. The titulary had only Re and Aten, the latter being the physical manifestation of the former. All bonds with the old pantheon had been broken. The new dawn had been heralded by Amenhotep IV, and now even that name itself could be mutilated in order to harm Amun. For only the Aten and his son reigned for all of eternity in the City of Light.

4.9 Presence without absence.

What happened with the Sun after it had set was not discussed. When the Aten "has gone away" the world is left in the sleep of death, only remaining in the heart of the king which was the enduring place of the Aten.

"Another technique of forgetting is silence. This technique was practiced by the Amarna texts, which never speak of what they implicitly reject."
Assmann, 1997, p.216.

4.10 Unity without multiplicity.

The multiple expressions of the divine are reduced to just one : light.

a balustrade section from Akhetaten
early representation - offering to Akhenaten
Tell el-'Amarna - Cairo Museum
As the afterlife was here already, one only needed to secure one's alliance with Akhenaten and his City of Light to be saved.

Akhenaten placed the queen at all four courners of his sarcophagus, showing that she was his goddess protecting him when he had died (the precedent was imitated by those close around him). The traditional four goddesses were removed.

The notion of a general judgment of the dead, with reward and punishment, were no longer suited. Only the grace & mercy of Pharaoh, himself the plummet of the scale of justice, could assure life to be given to those who had died.

The unloyal did not receive life after death. It was Akhenaten who decided. In the afterlife he cared for his people and the Aten cared for him.

Things were exactely the same as during one's lifetime. To his unloyal servants irreversible oblivion was the punishment given by Akhenaten, who clearly behaved as if he was the one omnipotent god (in the singular).

In the old pantheon, all kinds of deities had been worshipped claiming to be "great" and "the one" (i.e. unique) together with the other nationwide state-gods, who were all "greater" and also "the one" (or monolatry).

That there was an absolutely first and primordial deity was acknowledged by the learned, but Nun and Atum (the main players in the early three cosmogonies) became fairly inactive deities at the increase of Re and his political role in the welfare of his son, the king of Egypt.

Nevertheless, in matters touching regeneration, the afterlife and the creation of the world, the commoners continued to rely on the netherworld and its regenerative link with the primordial waters of Nun. The cults went underground.

► MYSTIC : exclusive & highly subjectified

4.11 Without Pharaoh no salvation.

Without Akhenaten, there was nobody to mediate on behalf of the people. For Pharaoh's relationship with the Aten was emulated by the common people in their interaction with Akhenaten. Take Pharaoh out of the Aten-project and the Aten has no son or representative to be worshipped. Nobody understood the Aten, except Akhenaten. Hence, the matter of "salvation" (in the Ancient Egyptian religion this implied a secure place in the presence of the god) was totally placed in the hands of Pharaoh. Never would the Aten directly intervene for commoners. His life-giving force (although touching and blessing everything it touched) could only be summoned for particularities by Akhenaten.

This exclusivity points to the deep impact left by some of the mystical experiences of Akhenaten. They had given him the strength to put aside beliefs cherished for thousands of years. That these experiences were not mature can be derived from the fact that he placed himself in the center. That his god Aten was unable to help people without his son did not impress the king as a limitation of his concept of the divine. His understanding of his mystical experiences was rooted in his personality, not in any abstract self-knowledge or in the divine itself. His mysticism was childish.

4.12 Eradication of Amun's interventions on behalf of the common people.

The fact Amun-Re, the king of the gods, who lived in grand temples, also listened to the prayers of common people in their homes (and evolution which started with the rise of individualism in the late Old Kingdom and blossomed in the Middle Kingdom) limited the spiritual status of Pharaoh as the sole mediator, and caused Amun to be abolished. Only Akhenaten listened to prayers and forwarded them to the Aten. No direct contact between the realm of the divine and the commoners was possible. As in the Old Kingdom, only Akhenaten had the exclusivity of mediation. Hence, not only the primordial world, the first time and the variety of deities were rejected, but also the slowly emerging notion that the divine also exists for common people. This must have been very difficult to accept. This is testified by the fact that immediately after the death of Akhenaten, the exclusive worship of the Aten was abolished, as well as the ban on the remainded of the pantheon and the denial of the afterlife in the netherworld (without Akhenaten no salvation).

"Jan Assmann has pointed to the impoverishment of social and religious life which this discontinuance of festivals entailed. Previously, festivals continually afforded fresh opportunities to approach the divine and beseech care and salvation from all sorts of afflictions."
Hornung, 1999, p.110.

Hence, the Amarna project was characterized by a radical elitism, for the heliomorphism of the divine realms could only be of any value in this world through the anthropomorphism of the Sun god in the unique person of Akhenaten. In Christianity, an analogous process took place, for he who sees Christ the Son -who is both perfectly human and Divine- sees the Father -absolutely Divine- and only the Son is the light, the truth and the way (the role of Nefertiti in the Amarna Trinity was played in the Christ-drama by Jesus' mother Mary and later the "Holy Roman Church", both representatives of the "Holy Spirit").

Akhenaten's exclusivity abrogated the notion of having one's deity in the heart (cf. personal piety). People were radically cut off from the divine and only Akhenaten (interpreting his own mystical experiences with an uni-polar megalomanic superstructure) knew the divine.

"It is clear that even public confession of one's personal god had been forbidden to the individual during the Amarna Period when Aya, the successor of Tutankhamun, boasts, 'I have removed the wretchedness, each person can now pray to his god.' The only resort was the internal. The gods and goddesses hibernated 'in the hearts' of their adorants as objects of longing, mourning, and the injunction that circulated clandestinely : 'Beware of him ! Proclaim him to great and small.'"
Assmann, 2001, p.229.

4.13 The mystical experience of Nature ?

Some see Amarna religion as a good example of a mysticism of nature, i.e. the direct experience of the divine in and through stations, states & processes of nature. However, this kind of mystical experience was part of the Ancient Egyptian heritage long before Akhenaten. New Kingdom demystification and naturalization brought about by the New Solar Theology made all kinds of contextual & polytheist associations vanish. This made the worship of nature (albeit the Sun) stand erect and naked without overgrowth.

The New Solar Theology and its radicalization in Amarna religion points to a kind of "philosophy of nature" avant la lettre. Although these elements are present, one should never forget Amarna religion would not have existed if Akhenaten's mystical experiences would not have taught him he alone had access to the divine. This alone points away from the tenets of a mysticism of nature to the superstructures of a mysticism of God-as-Person.

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5 Why was Akhenaten's monotheism sterile ?

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"Monotheism is but imperialism in religion."
Breasted, 1972, p. 315.

Let us introduce the following simple definitions :

polytheism : there are an finite number of Gods and Goddesses ;

monolatry : there is One Great God but reversibly so ;

henotheism : there is One God who manifests as many Gods and Goddesses ;

monotheism : there is numerically only 1 God and no Gods and Goddesses.

To speak of a "mature" monotheism, at least the following components should prevail :

radical Aloneness : the essence of the Divine remains ineffable (radical un-saying) ;

unity of being : the essence of the Divine is Unity ;

singularity : there is numerically only 1 God.

Egyptologists of the first hour believed polytheism appeared historically after monotheism. In the Adamic story they adhered to (cf. Torah), the former was the result of disobediance to the One God, invoked by the "people of the book" (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). The discovery & study of the Pyramid Texts (from 1881 on) scattered that view, for a variety of deities were active (a lot of divine names and forms). Not one of them was worshipped as "the only Great One" and nobody ruled over the others in any exclusive way (in fact, monolatry reigned : more than one god could be called "Great One").

Gaston Maspero was the first to read an original polytheism in Ancient Egypt. He disregarded the confusing fact the word "netjer" (god) was also used in an absolute, singular sense in personal names, wisdom literature and generalizing propositions. Did this not point to the presence of a "Great One" ? Indeed, others conjectured the existence of a "dieu des sages", a monolatery "for the initiated", co-habitating with popular polytheist figurations of the divine. So original monism was considered possible again ! Hermann Junker conjectured the existence of an anonymous "Great One" in the Old Kingdom.

Hornung made the first step to reconcile the positions by allowing for a fugal original monotheism in the early cosmogonies associated with Atum, while stressing the polytheistic, dynamical and elusive (quantum) nature of the creative order, to which the deities belonged. In doing so, he moved too much to a position in which the unicity of the divine was lost. Assmann suggested the idea of the bi-polar nature of the experience of the divine in Ancient Egypt, although not in these terms. He prefers "explicit" (the search for the Great One) and "implicit" (the figurations of the one in the millions) theology.

The present work characterizes the spirituality of Ancient Egypt as an unending quest for a balanced religion (Maat), in which both the "Great One" and the "millions" appear : henotheism. Egypt accepted multiple deities, but acknowledged the greatness of some (monolatry) before it realized the hidden Great One is before (and later "in") all deities, or henotheism (only when Atum creates himself is a form of monotheism at work, but only fugally for Atum immediately splits). "One" and "many" were always part of the spiritual continuum and this refutes the notion of a clear-cut identification of the "original" religion as either "unified" (monistic) or "differentiated" (pluralistic). In the Old Kingdom, fugal monism was taken for granted, for the divine was originally One but had immediately differentiated. However, no deity was addressed & worshipped as the "Great One" over and against the many. Was the "Great One" present in every differentiation (aspect), but clearly not in the same way ? This henotheist view became fashionable in the Middle Kingdom, and would culminate in the mature henotheism of Late Ramesside theology.

The confusion regarding the singular noun "god" and the all-comprehensive and universal role played by Nun, Atum & Ptah in the cosmogonies hand in hand with the pantheon, can be taken away by the observation that mature mystical experiences of the Divine (in states, stations & spiritual orders) always call for a superstructure involving a "coincidentio oppositorum" with two complementary sides or polarities :

(a) beyond affirmation & negation versus affirmation or negation in the order of logic : the Divine is being, non-being, beyond being and beyond not-being ; the essence of this "fifth" remains veiled but its attributes & modes are confirmed in all possible states ;
(b) un-saying (ineffable) versus named (knowable) in the order of thought : the essence of the Divine can not be known or experienced but the Presence of the Divine realized ;
(c) uncreated versus created in the order of being : the essence and names of the Divine are uncreated (but the names create) whereas the first cause of creation is not the ultimate cause, although everything is created by It.

"The arcanum of alchemy* is one of these archetypal ideas that fills a gap in the Christian view of the world, namely, the unbridged gulf between the opposites, in particular between good and evil. Only logic knows a tertium non datur ; nature consists entirely of such 'thirds', since she is represented by effects which resolve an opposition - just as a waterfall mediates between 'above' and 'below'. The alchemists sought for that effect which would heal not only the disharmonies of the physical world but the inner psychic conflict as well, the 'affliction of the soul', and they called this effect the lapis Philosophorum. (...) Hence they sought to find ways and means to produce that substance in which all opposites were united. It had to be material as well as spiritual, living as well as inert, masculine as well as feminine, old as well as young, and -presumably- morally neutral. It had to be created by man, and at the same time, since it was an 'increatum', by God himself, the Deus terrestris."
Jung, C.G. : Mysterium Coniunctionis, in : The Collected Works, Routledge & Kegan - London, 1978, volume 14, p.473 & 475 (*) al-chemy : or the art of "Chem", "Egypt".

In the Old Kingdom these polarities came down to :

(hidden) Nun, Atum, "the Great One" , primordial time, first time ... and
(manifest) Shu, Tefnut, Re and the "millions"

In the more individualistic Middle Kingdom, Osiris (NN) ruled the affairs of the afterlife as "king of the dead" and Amun-Re was both "hidden", "king of the gods" and "judge". The old pantheon allowed for the existence of both polarities, but often swayed to the polytheistic extreme of mythical variety hand in hand with mythical and pre-rational thought, i.e. with no stable concepts. The Middle Kingdom saw the advent of a more conscious form of henotheism. The New Kingdom theologies (New Solar, Amarna & Ramesside) demystified divine variety by stressing Re had many manifestations. But besides Re, other deities continued to operate. Nevertheless, the reduction was taken a step further by Akhenaten : monotheism.

Only in Amarna religion were all other deities removed. This major step was unfortunately coupled with an exclusion of darkness and an inflation of the cult of personality, rendering the blend sterile and doomed for perdition.

In the post-Amarna Period of the New Kingdom, the polarity had changed into :

►(hidden) Nun, Atum, "the Great One", primordial time, first time ... and
►(manifest) Amun-Re who becomes the millions
►(in the Memphis Theology the same is said of Ptah)

Amarna radicalized the position and might have worked were it not in the first place for Akhenaten himself. He was unable to truly depersonalize his own mystical experiences and institutionalize his teachings, for example in a sacred priesthood instead of in his beloved Nefertiti. They forgot to be mortals and to understand the consequences of death. Both suggest that Akhenaten had lost the ability to tax the real (psychosis ?).

Moreover, by trying to negate the netherworld and death (also his own), Akhenaten failed to truly universalize the Aten and produce a workable bridge from the old conception of the afterlife to one which did more than just remove the issue and for the rest remain silent. The destruction of the name of Amun shows that Amarna religion provided for an enemy on which to project the cause of all evil (the scape-goat method, so prominent in the history of monotheism). Instead of accepting that their denial of darkness did away with regeneration, they dealt with it as if it was the cause of their weakness and downfall.

Besides these major handicaps, his shaky & naive enterprise was formidable. But how long could it have continued to work after Akhenaten's sonless dusk ? With no mediator left, the Aten had become unreachable, except in death (for then the faithful would join Akhenaten in his City of Light). Was Akhenaten a mystic gone insane ?

Akhenaten's Aten-project did not fail because he was a monist. But is being a monist not the same as being a fundamentalist or in some way intolerant as Hornung claims ? 43 Indeed, true monotheism invokes a solitary God, a "Great One" who is in principle unreachable, and thus in no way salvic. Without a Divine Company, such a solitary God is bound to create a world uncapable to reflect It, Him or Her. This explains the importance of exclusivist prophesy in dogmatic monotheism : by sanctifying a set of texts, a medium can be invoked. Hence, true revelation is a direct infusion from heaven.

The Aten-project failed because Akhenaten's monism was restricted to the diurnal aspect of the course of the Aten only, namely the presence of light at the exclusion of darkness. This kind of one-sidedness, were a part of an obvious totality or whole is repressed, overtook the Aten-project. Fundamentalists do not tolerate the original teaching to be sullied, i.e. stained with foreign elements. In this case, Akhenaten was the creator of the original teaching, so he could hardly have been the first fundamentalist in history.

On the negative, Akhenaten champions the naive childishness of Pharaonic power and its traumatic effect on a whole nation. Instead of being a fundamentalist, he appeared as a peace-loving dictator with an inflated, megalomanic sense of himself (typical for unbalanced & incomplete higher states of consciousness). Did his mediations & interventions "work" for the people ? His Aten is not the "Great One", precisely because the nocturnal was eliminated (namely the hidden, the dark, the unknown).

On the positive, his religion initiated the emergence of a radical monotheistic view on the divine. By stressing the mathematical unicity of the divine, Akhenaten caused a major cognitive disequilibrium, forcing people to abolish the temples and interiorize their spiritual horizon, i.e. seek the "god in the heart". Paradoxically, the rejected part of reality in Amarna religion (the hidden) became the religious conscience of every individual.

Despite his teaching only Pharaoh could mediate, temple cults continued to exist and personal piety indeed developed. After Amarna, during the Ramesside period, a tremendous explosion of cultural activity took place. Without Amarna, the picture would have been quite different. After Amarna no violent reactions followed. What had been achieved on the positive side had to be consolidated together with the best of the old (as was usual in Ancient Egypt). Egypt returned to the pantheon, but renewed its theology. A consequent and mature henotheism saw the light.

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6 Ancient Egyptian religion after Amarna

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6.1 Restoration & the breakthrough of the Ramesside renewal of the old.

In the mortuary temple at Thebes of Smenkhkare, there was an Amun cult. For Hornung (1999, p.109) Smerkhkare was Akhenaten's son-in-law. For Reeves (2001, p.173), Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti (the great queen of Akhenaten) and Smerkhkare were one and the same person, suggesting a co-regency after the 12th regnal year. At the death of Akhenaten (close to the end of the 17th regnal year, following the wine vintage at the end of September or beginning of October), she became Pharaoh, just like Queen Hatshepsut had done before her. Parts of the burial equipment prepared for the use of Akhenaten's queen and (later) co-regent, was found in Tutankhamun's tomb and carry the portrait of their original owner. Smenkhkare (alias Nefertiti) had been impressive and Osirian !

Queen Nefertiti
by Thutmose - still in Germany ...

In two late tomb chapels at Tell el-Amarna, Amun is mentioned next to the Aten. Egyptologists discovered a partially mitigated reform while Akhenaten was still alive ! Tomb 55 contained the mummy of a person of fragile constitution, related to Tutankhamun, in his mid-thirties in excess of 35 years. Weigall argued that the occupant of the coffin was the owner of the four magical bricks found in it. These were inscribed with "the Osiris". This tomb was not the original burial place of the body & its equipment. The latter had probably been transferred from el-Amarna during the reign of Tutankhamun. For Reeves (2001, p.83), tomb 55 was "in fact a hasty reburial of mother and son, accompanied by a random selection of funerary items originally prepared for other and very different owners".

"... it was emphasized that not a scrap of evidence may be cited from the tomb to link any one of any thing in it with Akhenaten's successor ; on the contrary, the inscriptions and their context offer as good a proof as may reasonably be hoped for that the burial was Akhenaten himself - and this is a conclusion with which the most recent anatomical and dental estimated of the occupant's age of death now concur."
Reeves, 2001, p.173, my italics.

Akhenaten died in the prime of life, probably in the summer of 1336 BCE.

the skull of the body from tomb 55
presumably Akhenaten

The Atenite Triad had no son who could reiterate the role of the father, but only six daughters. Hence, the Atenite Ennead had only two males : the Aten and Akhenaten (merging into one and the same, namely Akhenaten). There was no unequivocal male heir. Loving Smenkhkare (alias Nefertiti) was crowned Pharaoh. Her temple heralds the return to Amun. But this reign was brief.

Tutankhaten (the living image of the Aten), of uncertain origin, called : "the king's bodily son" (as mentioned in a stray text found at Hermopolis with others depicting Kiya), succeeded Smenkhare (Nefertiti) in ca. 1333 BCE. He was probably the son of Akhenaten and Kiya, the "greatly beloved wife of the king", a lady of lesser rank who had given Akhenaten a son (albeit outside the divine triad). He had no direct part in the Atenite myth, which could only become fruitful through "the king's wife" Nefertiti, which never happened. So in accord with the patrilineal principle, Tutankhaten was direct in line for the throne.

On the back of his golden throne, the royal couple, Tutankhaten and Ankhesenpaaten, are represented beneath the radiant Aten. An attempt to compromize with Amun is prefigurated. Three years later, Tutankhaten changed his name in Tutankhamun ("the living image of Amun") and abandoned Akhetaten. The court was moved to Memphis, whence the text of the "Reformation Stela", proclaiming the end of the reform and the renewal of the old cults. Pharaoh is again designated as the beloved of Amun-Re, Atum, Re-Herakhty, Ptah and Thoth. This variety was necessary to put his royal seal of approval again on the important cults of the land, the temples of which had become a public footpath.

Tutankhamun died (was murdered ?) ca. 1323 BCE. His principal advisor Ay, who buried the young king in style (but in a tomb cut for someone else), became king. When the latter was still a boy, he had first acted as regent for the new king. He also was the father-in-law to Akhenaten (the father of Nefertiti ?). His four-year reign ends in total haze. Ay's tomb is a combination of the models of the radical innovations brought by Amarna (it also contains the Great Hymn to the Aten), with a return to mythological contextualization and derivations from the traditions of the old pantheon. Both tombs contain excepts from the Book of the Netherworld and the Book of the Dead. Ay died in 1319 BCE. General Horemheb seized the throne for himself.

This last member of the 18th Dynasty, used hymns in which the Sun god was again embedded in his traditional mythological niche, making Nut and Hathor mother of the Aten ! The return to the old pantheon was total. But, the tomb of high priest Parennefer of Amun at Karnak was modelled on Amarna tombs. The scenes of Sun worship, with rejoicing on the part of everything touched by its life-force, were not eliminated, neither were the chariots.

Pharaoh Horemheb (ca. 1319 - 1292 BCE) returned unambigeously to pre-Amarna days (33 years earlier). The administration was renewed, and the army reformed. The primacy of the Aten was brought to a formal end, with the dismantlement of Akhenaten's monuments. A series of kings were consigned to oblivion, namely Akhenaten, Smenkhkare (Nefertiti), Tutankhamun and Ay were struck from the records and their monuments usurped. This period had to be forgotten, and history rewritten. Akhenaten became the bogeyman of oral tradition.

In the opinion of the historians of the Ramesside Period that was to follow, general Horemheb was the first legitimate king since Amenhotep III. The Amarna kings fell victim to proscription. Horemheb returned to the traditional rock-cut tomb, but he replaced the Amduat with the new Book of the Netherworld. He died in 1292 BCE and had appointed a front-line officer called Paramessu to be his successor. The latter ascended the throne as Ramesses I, and founded the XIXth Dynasty. He died in 1290 BCE and (for the first time in sixty years) the crown passed to his son who ascended the throne as Sethos I. He reigned till 1279 BCE and in this period he tried to obliterate the traces of Amarna. The memory of Akhenaten was persecuted.

For Assmann, Ramesside theology was preluded by Amarna religion.44 For Hornung the theology of the post-Amarna period was a continuation of the New Solar Theology.45 However, it is clear the radicality of Amarna religion influenced the climate from which the old pantheon could emerge into something new. Especially the emergence of an integral & antinomic formulation of the divine may be grasped as a reaction against the one-sided approach of the Sun god in Amarna religion (light, life and day-time at the exclusion of darkness, death and night-time). The trauma caused by Amarna had triggered a more comprehensive re-articulation of the Ancient Egyptian cognitive horizon of the experience of the divine (mysticism, religious experience, personal piety) and of its theology, without the return of Akhenaten's radical monotheism of light. The repression of the old pantheon and the demise of the temples had interiorized the spiritual inclinations to the point of transformation. Intellectually, the Theban & Memphite theologians would made great leaps forward by developing mature henotheism (of Amun or Ptah). More than ever before, the common people could communitate with their gods, and although remote, Amun listened to the poor and was a compassionate great one god, hidden & alone.

The political system of the late New Kingdom collapsed under the Rameses of the late Ramesside period or XXth Dynasty (ca. 1188 - 1075 BCE). For after Rameses III, the last great Pharaoh able to repell the new invasions by the sea people (Philistines, Libyans), a rapid decay of internal order prevailed, leading to famine, strike, maladministration & the pilage of royal sepultures. The XXth Dynasty ends (ca.1075 BCE) with civil strife and the split of Egypt. With it the New Kingdom is over and the Third Intermediate Period started (ca. 1075 - 664 BCE). The chief priests of Thebes (in charge of the rocking barks & statues of the divine oracles of Amun-Re and hence omnipotent) became the hereditary monarchs (of Southern Upper Egypt) while the kings of Tanis wield power in Northern Lower Egypt (the Delta).

6.2 The integral, antithetic synthesis : Amun-Re who becomes millions.

Hornung is right to claim that in the minds of the Ancient Egyptians, the absolute unity of the "greatest" transcends the order of actual existence with its gods, goddesses, natural kingdoms and humans. The primordial waters & Atum had been in existence before anything else had come into existence. Atum was also associated with the setting Sun, returning to the netherworld (so to speak "in touch" with the primordial waters of the world before creation).

The Great One was not active before creation. Nun was inert. Atum self-engenders in the transition between pre-creation & creation : the first occurrence ("zep tepi"). His unity is co-terminal with Shu & Tefnut and when the rising of the primordial hill starts, the first time is over. This mythical time was the continuous & endless emergence of millions of beings out of chaos through the auto-erotical orgasm of Atum. Participating in this process of emergence and actualization was by itself life-giving.

"Words spoken by him whose names are secret, the Lord of All, who said to the Silent Ones who raged when the Entourage sailed : Go in peace ! I will relate to you the two deeds which my own heart did for me within the Coiled One in order that falsehood might be silenced. I have done four good deeds within the portal of the horizon. I made the four winds so that everyone might breathe in his time. One of my actions. I made the great inundation so that the poor as well as the rich might be strong. One of my actions. I made very man equal to his fellow, and I forbade them to do wrong, but their hearts disobeyed what I had said. One of my actions. I made their hearts not to forget the West, in order to make god's-offerings to the gods of the nomes. One of my actions."
Coffin Texts, spell 1130, VII 462-464.

The New Solar Theology had demystified the old pantheon by stressing light & movement, i.e. creation as theophany of Re. Amarna theology had been the radical consequence and brought forth :

the concept of a Great One against and above all other gods & goddesses and

the awareness of the importance of a complete picture of this One, which in the New Kingdom implied both the diurnal and nocturnal phases of the daily course of Re, and not, as in Amarna, only daytime.

After Amarna, it became clear to the Ancient Egyptian theologians of Amun-Re that their "Great One" was both unified & multiple, unknown & knowable, transcendent & immanent, hidden & manifest, absolute & relative, eternal & temporal, alone & together, distant & far, etc. Individual spirituality (the "god in the heart") became common.

Moreover, in Ramesside theology, this antithetic & antinomic bi-polarity of the divine is attributed to One Great Amun-Re who tolerated the existence of gods & goddesses next to him. The latter represent the principles of change which govern the realm of actual existence.46 All these deities ultimately derive from the Great One 47 and find there alone ways to become greater (through his beauty). This suggests that the gods & goddesses were but attributes, aspects, Self-manifestations of the hidden One. They represented his togetherness and nearness and compensated for his essence, which is absolutely self-sufficient in aloneness. However, these divinities existed next to the Great One, who did not abrogate them. The Ramesside Period

"... developed an entirely new terminology that made it possible to conceive of the diversity of deities as the colorful reflection of a hidden unity. It worshipped the unity as the hidden god, the deus absconditus et ineffabilis, the 'sacred ba of gods and men' whose names, symbols, emanations, manifestations, shadows and images were the various deities."
Assmann, 2001, p.241.

The multiple figurations of the gods & goddesses were mysteriously united by this Great One, so to speak ruling over the "Two Lands" of the seen & the unseen. The Great One is above all gods & goddesses and encompasses both the unseen and the seen. But the One is not against them !

Assmann points out that in Ramesside theology, the concept of the "hiddenness" and "primordial oneness" changed. The temporal sequence of pre-existence, first time and actual existence was ontologized in the sense that the hidden unity was found in and no longer before the multiple figurations ! 48 The same can be found in the Memphis Theology, were Ptah encompasses the whole temporal sequence, making things with his words.

The Great One Amun-Re is present in the divinity of the gods & goddesses (selective nearness, day) as a hidden, transcendent power (remoteness, night) hic et nunc. The Great One is not against the multiple figurations of deities next to Amun-Re. This was the tribute payed to the old religion, the theology of "constellations". The formal conditions of a complete outlook on the bi-polarity of the Divine is realized, however without generalizing the immanence beyond the figurations of gods & goddesses (as Akhenaten had done by identifying the divine realm as a whole with the light of the Aten, however at the exclusion of darkness but against the plurality of deities). Because of this renewal of the pantheon, the traditional deities could exist next to the Great One. This shows the exclusivity of the Aten (Akhenaten's monotheism) had been the breaking-point for Ramesside theologians, who preferred henotheism.

Furthermore, to conceive the hidden Great One as "the sacred ba of gods and men"49 opened the possibility to transcend the overt cultic forms (the deities) by immanence "in the heart". This unwill to actually abolish the "gods & goddesses" and replace them by names, symbols, emanations, manifestations & images of the hidden Great One against the other deities, may reveal a weak point in this proto-rational discourse. These deities were standard mythological solutions to all kinds of nomic, regional and nation-wide problems. Pre-logical (mythical), pre-rational and proto-rational thoughts were woven together to shape these archetypal forms. They were the concrete concepts and ideas which -in proto-rational thought & language- could not be decontextualized.

The ultimate validation of these concrete concepts could not be realized at the proto-rational cognitive level of thought. Ramesside theology arrived at a bi-polar concept of the divine, but was unable to relinquish its images. It arrived at a "hidden" henotheism of mystery & secrecy. This "hiddenness" of the Great One is in itself a decontextualization of the various deities and hence the first step towards a rational discourse. However, the fact that this unity was ineffable and that it was left open how this "hidden" power is able to differentiate is such a variety shows that this first step did not go beyond the threshold between the perfected proto-rationality of Ramesside theology and the beginning of monotheist reasoning, which calls to eliminate the divine status of the deities to the advantage of the Great One Alone above and against all gods & goddesses. Only then is the formal condition of monotheism, the theology of formal reason, fulfilled.

In that sense, the Great Hymn to the Aten contains the first radical, demystified departure from polytheism and henotheism. The reason why it failed in Ancient Egypt, was because the Aten is against all other deities (the dogmatic definition of the Aten is also incomplete because of the negation of the nocturnal). Amarna theology blossomed around a radically exclusive Solar religion limiting mediation to a sheer mortal and not to something more lasting after him. But the teachings themselves evidence traces of a decontextualized use of its concrete concepts (exclusivity of the Aten, story of the two Niles), indicating a level of thought leaping here and there beyond the proto-rational. Had Akhenaten assimilated the noctural phase in his teaching and provided for a more universal principle of mediation (like a sacred Aten priesthood), then Amarna religion would have had the features of a spirituality based on a natural philosophy. However, Amarna shows that for the Ancient Egyptians, the variety of deities was the foundation of their spirituality. They only touched monotheism but failed to understand its consequences fully. Akhenaten's "heresy" is precisely his radical rejection of multiplicity "in principle".

The Ancient Egyptians were unable to arrive at a rational monotheistic discourse and remained ante-rational henotheists. The best they could do was a splendid proto-rational synthesis of the bi-polar architecture of the spiritual experience of humanity, to which they gave form in an outspoken original, lasting and bewildering figural, pictoral & imaginal henotheist language. But in this language, the Great One is the hidden binding-stuff between the deities. How this Great One could remain unified facing the millions (who retained their own divinity) remained the mystery of his "ba".

Let us read this Hymn to Amun of the Ramesside period :

1 200th Chapter.
Secret of manifestations and sparkling of shape.
Marvellous God, rich in forms.
All gods boast of Him,
5 to magnify themselves in His beauty,
to the extent of His Divinity.
Re himself is united with His body.
He is the great one in Heliopolis.
He is called Tatenen.
Amun, who comes out of the Nun,
to guide the peoples.

10 Another of His forms are the Eight,
primeval one of the primeval ones, begetter of Re.
He completed himself as Atum,
being of one body with him.
He is the Universal Lord,
who initiated that which exists.

His Soul, they say, is the one who is in the sky.
15 He is the one who is in the netherworld,
foremost of the East.
His Soul is in the sky, His body in the West.
His statue is in southern Heliopolis,
elevating His body.

One is Amun,
who keeps Himself concealed from them,
who hides Himself from the gods,
no one knowing His nature.
20 He is more remote than the sky,
He is deeper than the netherworld.

None of the gods knows His true form.
His image is not unfolded in the papyrus rolls.
Nothing certain is testified about Him.

25 He is too secretive for His Majesty to be revealed,
He is too great to be enquired after,
too powerful to be known.

People immediately fall face to face into death
when His Name is uttered knowingly or unknowingly.
There is no god able to invoke Him by it.
He is Soul-like, hidden of name, like His Secrecy.

As Assmann pointed out, this hymn has a bipartite division : the first half deals with "affirmative" (positive) theology, the second with "negating" (negative) theology. The Great One is rich in forms but his name is unknown even to the deities. The "one who makes himself into millions".

This ineffable nature and greatness of Amun did not entail the next step, namely to posit the Great One against the deities, and to understand existence as a whole (the world) as a Self-manifestation of the Great One alone (in an endless number of attributes, and not only as "light" as had been the case for Akhenaten). This radical, rational step (although contents-wise the Great One now also manifested in the nocturnal phase) was not taken. Instead, the world by itself remained a differentiated divine existence worshipped in the various cults (old religion).

Observe these three different types of theism in the spirituality of Ancient Egypt :

fugal monotheism in the Old Kingdom : the primordial Atum, Lord of All, is the Great One who creates the gods & goddesses, but he exists only perpetually in the "first time" which re-occurs and hence represents a mythical eternity - although Self-generated, Atum's coming into existence entails a divine company, for Atum splits into Shu and Tefnut ;

Solar monotheism of light in Amarna culture : the Aten is the Great One who is and creates all with light and who is above and against all other deities ;

henotheism of hiddenness in the Ramesside Period : Amun-Re is the Great One who is the hidden "soul" of everything tolerating other divinities, who are the One's many faces. Like Ptah in the Memphis Theology, Amun-Re encompasses the all (pan-en-theism). The formula "one who is all" is bi-polar : a hidden, ineffable One essence and a hidden oneness behind the multiple ("omnia unum esse et unum omnia") was realized by Ramesside theology hand in hand with a variety of deities and cults. Moreover, the "unity" of the manifold was internalized as the implicit soul of the world ("anima mundi") living in the heart of every individual (cf. Vedantic philosophy with its "atman = brahman", the Qabalah of Adam Kadmon and the Hermetical correspondences between macro- and microcosmos).

Which monotheist conclusions did Ramesside theologians refused to draw from the experience of Akhenaten ? There is no Great One, if there are other divinities worshipped next to Him. He is One without a Second, let be Millions. The Aten-project in itself was monotheistic and radical (the Sole Aten was against other cults). Restricted by a theology which was exclusively Solar and by Akhenaten's exclusion of the Sun's nocturnal phase, Amarna religion had been unable to take root.

Major drawbacks inherent in the ante-rational cultural form of Ancient Egyptian civilization were :

the undying alliance with the old pantheon ;

the figural, pictoral (iconic) symbolizations of their concrete concepts which did not help the process of formal decontextualization ;

the deep-rooted cultural habit of the "multiplicity of approaches" (religious & artistic coherence and compromize instead of relative consistency -as in the Amarna teachings-) ;

continuous renewal of the old (conservationism which was deeply against ideological revolutions).

6.3 the Mosaic revelation, "YHVH Elohîm" and the elimination of the figural & the inert.

Exodus 2,5-9 : "And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river ; and her maidens walked along by the river's side ; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child : and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. (...) And she called his name Moses : and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."
Acts 7,22 : "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds."

As Assmann rightly pointed out, Moses is of memory, while Akhenaten is of history.50 Nevertheless, on the "Isreal Stela" of Merneptah (the Pharaoh who succeeded Rameses II) a people "Israel" appears for the first time in a list of the places and peoples ruled by Egypt (including Canaan). Biblical tradition affirms the children of Israel helped Ramesses II to expand Piramses (Pi-Riamsese) in the eastern Delta. This would make the "daughter of Pharaoh" the daughter of Seti I and situate one of the Exodus-stories (cf. Luban, 2003) during the reign of Ramesses II, raised to believe Moses was his brother. Moses, as a prince of Egypt, must have been aware of the problems in New Kingdom theology. And in view of his prophetic abilities later, he no doubt was interested in it too. What could he have learned from the Jews about Abraham and the foundation of their traditions ?

"I assert that the Book of Exodus is a story, containing elements of both truth and fiction. It is a composition that incorporates bits of reality from perhaps four separate exodoi of the Children of Israel ... "
Luban, 2003, p.9, my italics.

The Divine given to Abraham was "Elohîms" ("ALHYM"), a plurality of Divine faces, pronounced as "Eloha" in the singular. To Abraham, the "Elohîm" are living, creative forces, able to love and to change the world as they will (the "Sephiroth" of the Qabalah).

"And YHVH appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamrê as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day ; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him ..."
Genesis, 18:1-2, my italics.

These Divine energies are not a pantheon of "higher beings". They are the manifold expression of the One who's essence remained unnamed : YHVH. But the manifold of Divine expressions and presences are recognized (known) as a hierarchy of operational energies rooted in a transcendent Divine ineffable essence. "Eloha", the first of the "Elohîm", is the Creator of All, Creator of heaven & Earth, the first cause. The Elohîm" appears as an organized plurality under the unity of Adonai, or the "Lord", the vocal singular form of the absolutely transcendent ineffable "YHVH", as such unknown to Abraham, to whom only "ALHYM" was revealed.

After realizing he was Hebrew, after killing an Egyptian and being expelled, so the good book goes, Moses finally climbed the sacred mountain, the Horeb. While he had his eye wide open, "YHVH" (the) "Elohîm" revealed to him the core of Divine exteriority ("AHYH"), the Heart of the Lord, and hence His Ineffable Name.

"And Moses said to Elohîm,
Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say to them,
the Elohîm of your fathers hath sent me to You ;
and they shall say to me, What is His Name ? what shall I say to them ?
And Elohîm said to Moses : "AHYH" (I AM AND WILL BECOME) (...)
And Elohîm said moreover to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel,
YHVH the Elohîm of your fathers, the Elohîm of Abraham, the Elohîm of Isaac, and the Elohîm of Jacob, hath sent me to You (...)"
Exodus, 3:13-15, my bold.

The Names revealed to Moses were "YHVH" and "AHYH". "YHVH" implies the transcendent "Ain Soph (Aur)", the ineffable essence of the Divine, described in terms of a reality beyond being & absence of being and veiled by negatives ("Deus absconditus").

"The Tree of Life. Line of Light and the Contraction. Bear in mind that before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the upper simple light had filled entire existence and there was no empty space whatsoever. Namely no empty atmosphere, hollow, or pit, for everything was filled with that simple, boundless light, and there was no such part as head, and no such part as tail ; that is, there was neither beginning nor end, for everything was simple or smoothly balanced, evenly and equally in one likeness or affinity, and that is called the endless light."
Luria, I. : The Ten Luminous Emanations, in : Ashlag, Y.L. : Kabbalah, volume 1, Research Centre of Kabbalah Press - Jeruzalem, 1969, pp.55 & 59.

"AHYH" or the created order is ruled by "YHVH" ({0}) as the monarch (1) of a Creative Divine hierarchy (a supreme being and its order).

"YHVH" being ineffable, is pronounced as "Adonai", "Lord" (written : YHAdonaiVH). "ALHYM" (or "Elohîms), a masculine plural ("Eloah" is the singular form) of a feminine noun, indicating neutral plurality & receptivity to the creative impulse, is the "Divine Presence" within the created order (cf. the "Shekinah" of Qabalah and "Sophia" in Gnosticism).

"Elohîm" is creational and related to the majestic revelatoric plurality of the singular hidden "YHVH". It expresses the totality of Divine attributes (or exterior) and underlines the variety with which the Divine manifests in creation (Lord-in-Nature). The "Elohîm" are not personalities for no "Eloah" (singular) can constitute Divine existence without reference to "YHVH", the uncreated silence. There are no isolated, "secundary" deities, only YHVH ALHYM.

"YHAdonaiVH est l'Être unique, la matrice de toute vie, Celui qui a été, qui est et qui sera. Les Elohîms en expriment les puissances créatrices infinies. (...) N'oublions pas que si YHAdonaiVH est Unique, Elohîms est pluriel. Les prophètes n'ont jamais aspiré à voir surgir un univers monolithique : l'Unité qu'ils annoncent n'est pas faite d'uniformité, mais, nous y reviendrons, d'une universelle et vivante diversité, dans l'unité de l'Être qui la fonde, YHVH. Mieux que monothéistes, ils sont théomonistes."
Chouraqui, A. : Moise, du Rocher - Paris, 1995, p.181-182, my italics.

The Divine is conceived as onefold but bi-polar. Unity is called "YHVH", variety or actual existence is called "Elohîm". The Divine Name "YHadonaiVY" indicating a unity whereas the Name is a duality. So bi-polarity is expressed in the Name itself.

Closed, Absent,
Remote, Potential Divine bi-polarity Disclosed, Present
Near, Actual
"YHVH" One God "ALHYM"
absolute, eternal, infinite singularity the Divine one-fold relative, temporal, finite living plurality

YHVH is singular, ineffable, uncreated & infinite
the ALHYM are plural, knowable, created & eternal
AHYH is one, godhead, first cause & alternation-point

The "Elohîm" are Divine creative energies, plural & rooted in the infinite but created (although creating). The Name "YHVH Elohîm" indicates both these singular & plural aspects of the Divine and so stands for the totality of all that is Divine. The Name "YHVH" can not be vocalized. It indicates a "negative", pre-creationa, Divine Absolute Infinity.

What do we learn by confronting late New Kingdom theology with this "Hebrew" approach, for both were probably known to Moses the Egyptian, who lives in the memory of Israel as their liberator and initiator ? The first major theological words spoken by Elohîm to Moses were :

"I am YHVY thy Elohîm, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth : Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God ..."
Exodus, 20,2-4.

The first thing decreed is precisely what had been refused in the New Kingdom, as Amarna evidences, namely radical monotheism : no other deities next to the Great One. The revelation of Moses (the Torah) takes the next step, for the exclusive worship of natural phenomena (as the Aten) is also rejected. This YHVH can not be represented. This suggests the Elohîm make up the underlying Divine order of the created order, out of which the various expressions and modes of being emanate (top-down). By reaching out (bottom-up) the pure servant exist in the point of beauty in the heart (Tiphareth), maintaining the proper balance between the Mercy (Gedulah) & the Severity (Geburah) of the Divine Elohîm.

Some drastic changes in the concept of pre-creation should also be noticed. In Ancient Egyptian theology (a period spanning 15 centuries, from the IIIth to the XXth Dynasty), pre-creation had always been structured as an Ennead headed by the Great One (as Atum-Re, Thoth, Ptah or Amun). The Great One created himself (causa sui).

For Moses and the mystical tradition after him, pre-creation exclusively belonged to YHVH. Although qabalists like Luria saw pre-creation as "Ain Sof Aur" or "endless light", it was reckoned to be a "negative existence" which always remained hidden. Before creation, only YHVH existed. What is said about the "hidden" pole of Ramesside bi-polarity, compares with this ineffable essence called "YHVH". Hence Amun, the Aten, Adonai and Allah have been compared.

Mosaic revelation brings to the fore the Great God Alone. YHVH is decontextualized. The Great One of Ancient Egypt remained rooted in mythical, pre-rational & proto-rational contextualizations. But the formula "the One who becomes millions" and "YHVH Elohîm" do have in common the One encompassing pre-creation, creation and post-creation (cf. Atum-Re, Ptah & Amun-Re).

Ramesside Theology Qabalah
the Great One + 8 gods, HIDDEN "YHVH" ALONE, ONE, VEILED
the first time, HIDDEN tzim-tzum or contraction in negative existence
Atum / Amun the Creator 1. Kether, the first Elohîm
Shu, Tefnut ... the Ennead 2. Chockmah, 3. Binah ... 10. Malkuth
and the Divine world of Atziluth
the created order the worlds of Briah, Yetzirah & Assiah

Ancient Egyptian proto-rationality was pictoral and the figurations were icons, "loci" were the Divine could abide in images. The Elohîm were also plural, but the 10 "Sephiroth" of the Tree of Life (the fundamental scheme of Qabalah) represented a well-formed "unum omnia", a unified whole (like the 10 times "Elohîm said" occurs in the first chapter of Genesis or the 10 descriptive orders on the tables of the law in Exodus).

the Tree of Life
That this model is a linearization of the Egyptian temple (court, hypostyle hall, sanctuary, holy of holies) may be appreciated when the drawing is completed (in most representations the lower Abyss is not shown).

Moreover, the superstructures of its mystical experience had given Israel a geometrical hierarchy (impossible without decontextualizations - cf. Greek "theoria"), for these 10 Numerations are part of the architecture of their beautiful interactions (22 in number, i.e. as many as there are letters in the Hebrew alephbet).

This "ladder of light" is nothing less than the existence of YHVH, for the Elohîm are nothing but the Self-manifestation of the essence of being only for YHVH to experience.

The Elohîm, translated as "gods and goddesses", does not represent a pantheon, but the totality of Divine emanations. These lights are "uncreated".

This tool of Jewish Gnosticism came into being as the result of a strange mixture of, on the one hand, Greek (cf. Pythagoras on the decad), philosophy and mystery traditions, and, on the other hand, the Judaic traditions persisting despite very strong Hellenistic influence.

the "Divine" : Details
4 gods and 4 goddesses
the Great One the One emerges out of inert, dark & chaotic primordial pre-creation, to simultaneously split, creating a diversity of deities
Atum
the creator the Great One, who creates himself & the deities, exists fugally in the first time, submerged in the chaotic inertness of the primordial sea
Re
the one god the Great One as One god of light, above all other deities, of an ineffable essence and omnipresent as life-giving light
the deities divinities created by the Great One, existing next to him as his theophanies and in the heavens of the afterlife, dwelling in temples and statues
YHVH the Great God Alone above and against all deities, saying "I AM" and thereby creating the ennead of creators, His living Divine Presences
ELOHIM the living Divine Presences of the Great God Alone as nine Divine emanations from YHVH's crowning creative command "I AM"
god, goddess the Greek "theos" (Latin "Deus") was used to translate "Elohîm" instead of "YHVH". A god is a being that is worshipped.
The God (Allah) the ineffable & veiled Great One Alone who Self-manifests through an infinite number of attributes, endless worlds and actual existences

So for Moses and his Abrahamic descendants, Divine plurality is maintained but the deities themselves are eliminated. There are no divinities next to YHVH Elohîm. No other being than The God is to be worshipped. Divine unity is ineffable, hidden and for ever above the world (transcendence), whereas Divine existence is guaranteed by the ten Elohîm who will, create, shape & manifest Divine energies animating all of actual existence (immanence). These Elohîm are not independent or quasi-independent deities with their own contextual (constellational) limitations. They are the totality of Divine existence, but each time viewed from one out of nine other possible modes of Divine Self-manifestation. In each mode all other modes are present.

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Epilogue

For two major reasons, the reforms of Akhenaten did not work : on the one hand, monotheism (One God Alone before and against all other Deities) does not mix with the polytheism, monolatry and henotheism of the Egyptian mentality, and, on the other hand, the return to a monarchic monotheism (but this time devoid of filial lineage) was an anachronism. Although some must have thought the Sun god in person was at work in Akhetaten, the reforms (by radicalizing the Solar Theology) went too far, for how to believe Osiris had become irrelevant and to pray to Akhenaten and Nefertiti was sufficient ?

The Amarna episode elucidates one of the dangerous characteristics of monotheism, namely the "scape-goat"-effect, dogmatism and fanaticism. In the case of Akhenaten, Amun and Osiris were the scape-goats, his exclusive Aten worship with adjacent Pharaonic exclusivity the dogma, and the more or less systematic destruction and termination of cults & festivals the effects of fanaticism and a lack of tolerance towards existing traditions. These themes are recurrent in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each claiming an exclusive relationship with God.

Perhaps the wisdom of Egypt is precisely this Oriental refusal to reduce and simplify creation ?

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Notes

For a general bibliography on Amarna see :
Martin, G.T. : A Bibliography of the Amarna Period in Its Aftermath, London, 1991.

For the hieroglyphic text (751KB) of the Great Hymn to the Aten the copy of Davies was used :
Davies, N. de G. : The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, part VI, The Egypt Exploration Fund - London, 1908.

My translation of the Great Hymn to the Aten was especially inspired by :
Breasted, J.H. : Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, Pennsylvania Press - Pennsylvania, 1972, pp.324-328.
Lichtheim, M. : Ancient Egyptian Literature, University of California Press - California, 1976, vol.II, pp.96-100.
Le Grand Hymne à Aton en 4 langues : Hiéroglyphes, Français, Anglais, Arabe, Samir - Paris, 1991.
N.de G.Davies : Rock Tombs of El Amarna, Archaeological Survey of Egypt - London, 1908.
Assmann, J. : Moses the Egyptian, Harvard University Press - London, 1997, pp.172-177.
Hornung, E. : Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, pp.79-83.

(1) Assmann, J. : The Seach for God in Ancient Egypt, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 2001, p.8.
(2) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.153.
(3) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.224.
(4) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.224.
(5) Staal, F. : Exploring Mysticism, Penguin - New York, 1975. For a more elaborated bibliography on mysticism consult my Dungen, van den, W. : Kennis en Minne-Mystiek, 1994, preludium, note 6.
(6) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.156.
(7) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.18-19.
(8) Lichtheim, M. : Ancient Egyptian Literature, California University Press - California, volume 1, 1975, p.17.
(9) Lichtheim, M. : Ibidem, pp.8-9.
(10) Hornung, E. : Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, Cornell University Press - New York, 1999, p.5.
(11) Walle, van de, B. discusses the copies by Sicard in Revue d'Égyptologie, 1976, n°28, pp.12-24.
(12) Wilkinson, J.G. : Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, London, 1837.
(13) Champollion, F. : Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829, Paris, 1833.
(14) Lepsius, K.R. : "Ueber den ersten ägyptischen Götterkreis und seine geschichtlich-mythologische Entstehung", in : Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Jahrgang 1851, pp.157-214, quoted text translated by Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.3.
(15) Weigall, A. : The Life and Times of Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt, Edinburgh, 1910.
(16) A more recent publication is : Moran, W.L. : The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press - Baltimore, 1992.
(17) Bouriant, U. : "Deux Jours de fouilles à Tell al-Amarna", in : Mémoires publiés par les membres de la Mission archéologique française au Caire, Paris, 1884.
Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.10.
(18) Breasted, J.H. : De Hymnis in Solem sub Rege Amenophide IV conceptis ("On the Hymns to the Sun composed under Amenophis IV"), Berlin University - dissertation, 1895.
(19) Störig, H.J. : Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie, Kohlhammer - Stuttgart, volume1, 1959.
(20) Assman, J. : Op.cit., pp.10-13.
(21) Lichtheim, M. : Op.cit., 3 volumes, 1975.
Breasted, J.H. : Ancient Records of Egypt, University of Illinois Press - Illinois, 2001 (4 volumes).
Parkinson, R.B. : The Tale of Sinuhe and other Ancient Egyptien Poems, Oxford University Press - Oxford, 1997.
Lalouette, Cl. : Textes Sacrés et Textes Profanes de l'Ancienne Égypte, Gallimard - Paris, 1984.
Roccati, A. : La Littérature Historique sous l'Ancient Empire Égyptien, Du Cerf - Paris, 1982.
Barucq, A. & Daumas, F. : Hymnes et Prières de l'Égypte Ancienne, Du Cerf - Paris, 1980.
Pound, E. & Stock, N. : Love Poems of Ancient Egypt, New Directions - New York, 1962.
(22) Tempels, P. : Bantu Philosophy, Présence Africaine - Paris, 1959.
Apostel, L. : African Philosophy : Myth or Reality ?, Scientia - Gent, 1981.
Eze, E.Ch. (edit) : African Philosophy, Blackwell - Malden, 1998.
(23) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.22 : on the Third Pylon of the Montu temple at Karnak.
(24) Hornung, E. & Staehelin, E. : "Studien zum Sedfest", in : Aegyptiaca Helvetica I, Geneva, 1974.
Aldred, C. : "The Second Jubelee of Amenophis II", in : Zeitschrift fur Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, n°94, 1967, pp.1-6.
Assmann, J. : "Das ägyptische Prozessionsfest.", in : Assmann, J. & Sundermeier, T. (editors) : Das Fest und das Heilige : Religiöse Kontrapunte zur Alltagswelt, SVR 1- Gütersloh, 1991, pp.105-122.
(25) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.26.
Kozloff, A.P. & Bryan, B.M. : Egypt's Dazzling Sun : Amenhotep III and His World, Cleveland, 1992.
Kàkosy, L. : "The weltanschauliche Krise des Neuen Reiches.", in : Zeitschrift fur ägyptologische Sprache und ALtertumskunde, n°100, 1973, pp.35-41.
(26) Budge, E.A.W. : The Mummy, Dover - New York, 1989, p.33.
(27) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., pp.32-33.
Beckerath, J. : "Handbuch der ägyptischen Köningsnamen", in : Münchner ägyptologische Studien, n°20, 1984.
(28) Hornung, E. : The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, p.27.
(29) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., pp.201-208.
(30) Lichtheim, M. : Op.cit., vol.II, p.87.
(31) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.201.
(32) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.213.
(33) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.30.
Murane, W.J. : "On the Accession date of Akhenaten.", in : Studies in Honor of George R.Hughes, The Oriental Institute - Chicago, 1977, pp.163-167.
Murane, W.J. : "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies.", in : Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Chicago, n°40, 1977, pp.123-169.
Hornung, E. : Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte ders Neuen Reiches, Wiesbaden, 1964, pp.71-78.
(34) Hart, G. : A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods & Goddesses, Routledge & Kegan - London, 1986, pp.41-42.
(35) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.50.
(36) Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.76.
(37) Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.39.
(38) Champollion, F. : Notices descriptives, vol.2, p.320, mentioned by Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.130. For the other others : Hornung, E. : Ibidem, pp.43-44.
(39) Budge, E.A.W. : The Gods of the Egyptian, Dover - New York, 1969, vol.1, pp.63-74.
Hornung, E. : Les Dieux de L'Egypte : le Un et le Multiple, du Rocher - Paris, 1986, pp.24-27.
Aldred, C. : Akhenaten, King of Egypt, Thames and Hudson - London, 1988, p.273.
(40) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.56.
Hornung, E. : The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, pp.55-77.
(41) Moran, W.L. : The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press - Baltimore, 1992.
(42) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.216.
(43) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., pp.125-126.
(44) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.222.
(45) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.125.
(46) Hornung, E. : Les Dieux ..., p.235.
(47) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.241.
(48) Assmann, J. : Moses..., pp.263-264.
(49) Papyrus Berlin 3030, 8-9, Papyrus Louvre 3336, 1, 1-16, Papyrus Brussels by Speelers, L. in : Receuil des Travaux, n°39, 1917, 28ff.
Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.241.
(50) Assmann, J. : Moses ..., p.21.

initiated : 05 VI 2001 - last update : 03 XII 2010 - version n°7

© Wim van den Dungen
Antwerp, 2005 - 2011.

2011 Arnold Sports Festival: Top 3 Women's - Alina Popa

2011-10-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Alina Popa

Alina Popa – Zurich, Switzerland. 5-6, 163 pounds.

Romanian-born Alina Popa brings to the bodybuilding stage what the European judging community refers to as ‘ideal harmony’. And when Popa made her pro debut at last year’s Ms. International, she left everyone understanding exactly what that meant. Her eighth-place finish at the 2010 Ms. International notwithstanding, Alina Popa possesses an idyllic level of muscular proportion and genetic gifts that make her a certifiable future star – and perhaps sooner, rather than later.

Competing sparingly to make what she feels are the necessary changes to craft the best possible physique, Popa – who is still relatively young in her early 30’s - won the heavyweight and overall 2008 IFBB World Amateur Championship titles.

Before moving to Switzerland, Popa won the Romanian National title in 2003 and was a silver medalist at the 2004 IFBB European Championships. If the post-contest buzz at last year’s Ms. International is any indication as to her potential at an event of this prestige, Alina Popa can quickly become a much more familiar name among the top finishers.

Alina Popa de fredd2220

Alina Popa de fredd2220

Exit

2011-09-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

C.T.C.

2011-08-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

RETORTA

2011-06-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

( ziua cârtiţei )

“trăieşti o zi cu benzina curgând spre semaforul alb,
ziua cârtiţei personale, acolo unde oboseala sforăie
în cartilagiul urechii ca o omidă femeie şi bărbat
onduland spre loc cu verdeata, porti cu tine viscolul,
un zâmbet truc învăţat acum mulţi ani de la bunica,
acolo unde stelele te lasă decolorat de ploile puţine,
acolo unde venele albăstrii presărate cu aur şi untura
de porc devin instrumente care te pot trăda în acelaşi
timp, acolo unde zilele au propria grotă în care dispar
în tacere toate călătoriile induse în minte, acolo unde
sufletul ti-e bont si fraged de prea mult timp, ultimul
pahar de vin şi ultima servitute, e viu şi pluteşte pe
un fildeş care devine piatră, rotiţă a fricii de a doua zi,
acolo unde toţi vânzătorii de sclavi transformă apa în
ulei de gătit şi întreabă “tu când pleci să faci ceva?”

AB DANNESIUS

Xiron Xin

2011-06-24T15:18:00.001-07:00

Temudjin Borkchu

2011-06-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

UNOCULAR WIDTH

2011-06-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

OBITUARY OF A BLACK WAITRES

2011-06-06T13:18:00.000-07:00