Original artwork, not a still
Belief and Technique for Modern Prose • 1958
Believe in the holy contour of life
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Kerouac asks the writer to treat ordinary life, with all its shapes and rhythms, as something sacred enough to follow rather than tidy up. It sums up the Beat idea that attention is a form of reverence, and it is passed around among writers and poets as a small creed for noticing the world.
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In context
Spoilers for Belief and Technique for Modern ProseShow the scene
The line is one of the thirty short maxims in Jack Kerouac's list "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose", a compact set of instructions for writing in the spontaneous style behind On the Road. Wikiquote traces the list to a letter to Arabelle Porter dated 28 May 1955 and to a letter to the editor Don Allen in 1958; it was later printed in the posthumous collection Heaven & Other Poems (1977). Its sentences are terse, almost telegraphic commands, such as writing in recollection and amazement for yourself, and the holy contour of life is one of them. It is a list of advice, not a book or a narrative.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: Jack KerouacEntries from 'Belief & Technique For Modern Prose: List of Essentials'Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Jack KerouacSpontaneous prose discussionReference checked
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