{"id":20528,"date":"2015-02-05T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T10:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=20528"},"modified":"2015-02-04T19:24:39","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T00:24:39","slug":"t-s-eliot-as-inventor-of-the-hipster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/02\/t-s-eliot-as-inventor-of-the-hipster\/","title":{"rendered":"T.S. Eliot as inventor of the Hipster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Literary scholar Karen Swallow Prior is kind enough to credit me for mentoring her through graduate school.\u00a0 I\u2019m proud to see that she has become a \u201cpublic intellectual,\u201d writing regularly for both Christianity Today<\/em> and The Atlantic.\u00a0 <\/em>You have got to read her essay about how the whole mindset of the hipster is captured in T. S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cThe Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.\u201dFrom Karen Swallow Prior, When T.S. Eliot Invented the Hipster \u2013 The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

January 4 marks 50 years since the death of poet T. S. Eliot. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of one of Eliot\u2019s most famous poems, \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,\u201d the work that thrust Eliot onto the modernist stage. An embodiment of turn-of-the century angst wrought by a world sucked dry by skepticism, cynicism, and industrialism, Prufrock bears striking similarities to a subculture of mostly white, urban, detached-yet-sensitive young adults at the cusp of our own century. One might say Eliot invented the hipster.<\/p>\n

\n

In a keen essay on the hipster at The New York Times, Christy Wampole describes the urban hipster as nostalgic \u201cfor times he never lived himself.\u201d Before he makes any choice,\u201d Wampole explains, the hipster \u201chas proceeded through several stages of self-scrutiny. The hipster is a scholar of social forms, a student of cool. He studies relentlessly, foraging for what has yet to be found by the mainstream.\u201d A pastiche of allusive, retro gadgets, hobbies, clothing, hairstyles, and facial hair\u2014ever increasingly referential\u2014the hipster is \u201ca walking citation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, he is J. Alfred Prufrock.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . . ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Literary scholar Karen Swallow Prior is kind enough to credit me for mentoring her through graduate school.\u00a0 I\u2019m proud to see that she has become a \u201cpublic intellectual,\u201d writing regularly for both Christianity Today and The Atlantic.\u00a0 You have got to read her essay about how the whole mindset of the hipster is captured in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,28],"tags":[3438,2149],"class_list":["post-20528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-literature","tag-hipsters","tag-t-s-eliot"],"yoast_head":"\nT.S. 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