Genius Award
20th Century Genius Award: John Lennon
It is with great pleasure and honor that the Committee of Genius presents the 20th Century Genius Award for Excellence in the Age of Pluralism and the Age of Modernism to English artist, musician, and social activist John Lennon.
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940. In 1957, when he was still a teenager, Lennon founded a rock and roll band with a bass player Paul McCartney. Their friendship and musical talents blossomed and became the Beatles -- one of the biggest, most successful, and world-renowned musical acts in history. As his biographer Anthony DeCurtis (n.d.) points out, "If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured." However, there is more to John Lennon than the Beatles. Lennon's life work "suggested not merely a profound musical and literary sensibility -- a genius, in short -- but a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic," (DeCurtis, n.d.).
After the breakup of the Beatles, John Lennon formed a multi-level partnership with Japanese artist Yoko Ono. Bridging the two cultures proved the John Lennon was the living embodiment of the Age of Pluralism. Lennon and Yoko became life partners, artistic and creative partners, and partners for political action. Together, Yoko and John staged political protests such as their famous "bed-in," which was a type of sit-in for peace.
Lennon was a genius on many levels. One of those levels was in the realm of media and popular culture. Lennon once told a reporter that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus." This controversial statement might have upset people in America, who burned Beatles albums in protest (DeCurtis). However, this incident served to show how dedicated a Pluralist Lennon really was. When he and Yoko staged their bed-ins, they mastered the art of using the media to garner attention for important political causes. Lennon and Ono were dedicated to peace. Lennon also understood that "low brow" art forms like rock and roll were critical to the formation of popular culture, and that popular culture and the media were tools of social and political empowerment. Therefore, John Lennon proved himself continually to be a spokesperson for Modernism as well as Pluralism.
According to an eNotes explanation of the tenets of Modernism, five main issues are listed including the following:
modernist poetry with an open verse and free form.
"lost generation" and disillusionment with America and materialism stream of consciousness capture "despair and angst"
"decadence and sexual freedom"
When these five issues are evaluated in turn, it is clear that no other Twentieth Century figure could meet all five of these parameters other than the late John Lennon. First, the format of modernist poetry is evident in the many songs that John Lennon wrote both during and after The Beatles. Songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever," and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" are two of Lennon's iconic Beatles songs, and both use an open verse. While some of Lennon's songs rhyme for their musical impact, most of them are composed in free and open form.
The lyrics for "Norwegian Wood" are as follows:
"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me...
She showed me her room, isn't it good, Norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere,
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine
We talked until two and then she said, "It's time for bed"
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath
And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown
So I lit a fire, isn't it good, Norwegian wood.
Lennon was a member of what Gertrude Stein called the "lost generation." Although Stein used the term to refer specifically to Americans, the tenets of the "lost generation" apply equally as well to Englishmen like John Lennon. The lost generation members were characteristically disillusioned with American culture, values, and policies, which is why many literary and artistic Americans in the first half of the twentieth century moved to Europe ("Modernism," eNotes). In Lennon's case, the artist was also disillusioned with American culture. He was an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam (DeCurtis).
One of the hallmarks of Modernism in the arts and culture is the use of stream of consciousness. Any casual listen to Beatles albums such as...
From approximately 1930 until the 1980s, rectangular and functional spaces were the chief form of architecture around the world in general. The latter part of the 20th century -- the 1980s onward -- saw change once again, however (2008). For the most part, 20th century architecture, however, "focused on machine aesthetics or functionality and failed to incorporate any ornamental accents in the structure" (2008). The designs were, for the
(269) It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne
One of Wright's major works was Black Boy and one of the most poignant sections of that book was Chapter 12 in which Wright described the experiences of two southern black boys exploited by the "five dollar fight." Working for an optician in Memphis, Tennessee, the protagonist (Richard) hopes that his experiences with white people in Memphis will be better than in the small town of Jackson, Mississippi "The people
A favorite target for conspiracists today as well as in the past, a group of European intellectuals created the Order of the Illuminati in May 1776, in Bavaria, Germany, under the leadership of Adam Weishaupt (Atkins, 2002). In this regard, Stewart (2002) reports that, "The 'great' conspiracy organized in the last half of the eighteenth century through the efforts of a number of secret societies that were striving for
As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers -- and found very little scholarship in print" (Women's history, 2012, para. 3). This dearth of scholarly is due in large part to the events and themes that are the focus of the historical record. In this regard, "History was
Vincent Van Gogh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Madeleine Vionnet. What did this 19th century artist, architect, and fashion designer share in common? Very simply: They all incorporated Japanese techniques into their works of genius. When Commodore Perry opened the doors to this Eastern country in 1853, an abundance of unique and influential styles of art rushed out and captured the imaginations of artists throughout the Western world. As author Emile
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now