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    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down"
    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down"
    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down"
    Ebook34 pages24 minutes

    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 2, 2016
    ISBN9781535820752
    A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down"

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      A Study Guide for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Christ Climbed Down" - Gale

      08

      Christ Climbed Down

      Lawrence Ferlinghetti

      1958

      Introduction

      Christ Climbed Down, like much of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's work, is a poetry of social criticism forged in direct response to the culture it springs from. It is a poetry written in opposition to what the Beats, a group of artists (of which Ferlinghetti was a highly prominent member) called the square world (the mainstream), to which they counterpoised the gone world. Ferlinghetti's first book of poetry, published in 1955, in fact, was called Pictures of the Gone World.

      The 1950s were a time of great social injustice in the United States. Racism, especially against African Americans, not only existed as a matter of fact, it was institutionalized and accepted, sometimes even celebrated, as a way of life. In addition to the institutionalized racism of the time, there was the continuous threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. In America, money, brain power, and labor were dedicated to, or, some would have argued, sacrificed to the arms race—the attempt to build more deadly weapons than the Russians.

      In reaction to this climate, the Beats flaunted a freedom from conformity. They lived communally on little money, disdained employment, and worked for money only when absolutely necessary. They broke with sexual conventions and racial prejudices, and sought to liberate an inner creative and spiritual force through art, often aided by mind altering substances like alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. They were also, as a rule, pacifistic with regard to the Cold War and against militarism and regimentation in general.

      Thus, very much rooted in this tradition, Christ Climbed Down employs the images of the conventional Christmas icons it satirizes and hopes to erase. Ferlinghetti does not disdain Christ or Christmas. He is instead pointing to their subversion by consumerism and materialism, a subversion that blocks the spirit from being expressed. One of Ferlinghetti's best-known

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