On the Historical Narrative and Satirical Language in “Wichita Vortex Sutra” by Allen Ginsberg

Existing scholarship usually situates Allen Ginsberg’s iconic role as a countercultural poet, while few studies have examined him as a historical chronicler of the 1950s onwards, focusing on historical interpretations and irratio focusingnal narratives that appear in his poems. This study, then, examines the historical interpretive strategies employed in the narrative discourses on irrtionalism, counterculture, anti-war, post-industrial civilization and so on involved in “Wichita Vortex Sutra”. Specifically, it investigates satirical language as a kind of interpretive emplotment function to present Ginsberg’s irrationalism and anti-war narratives, by applying Hayden White “Metahistory” as its theoretical framework. It argues that Ginsberg's rearrangement, representation, and interpretation of Vietnam War narratives, achieved through poetic motifs and techniques, reveals an encoded satire on the U.S. politics, culture, and society. This part examines the primary level of Ginsberg’s interpretive strategies thus providing the foundation for subsequent analysis on his individual storytelling of 1960s America.