Greenwich Village Bohemia: A Winter Wonderland Turns Into An American Renaissance(Part III).

"Thus for the great ages tragedy is not an expression of despair but the means by which they saved themselves from it. It is a profession of faith, .......A tragic writer does not have to believe in God, but he must believe in man." (5)

Somewhere along the way towards creation, some artists forget the difference between the imitation of art and life itself. Soon art begins to serve a purpose that it may never have been designed for in the first place; that of defining the mode and method of the way in which an individual lives. The line between art and the experience of life is a thin one, and that line may be insanity. Walk towards close to the edge and many an artist may find him or herself falling over the abyss of the self. Soon the artist may lose a sense of meaning in a self-created world that was never designed to have meaning in the beginning, or delve into a world of illusion eventually self-destructing in a wave of energy, as a candle releasing all of its' light in one burst, or an explosion in the night of evening's heartsong souless wonder. Alcoholism, drug addiction, psychosis, and many other fates too horrible to comprehend seemed to have followed many of the beatnick poets. A few survived, but by the end of a decade, Greenwich lay in a heap of lost ashes mixed with the last felt remains of a heated sordid sun.

The absurdity of this situation is displayed clearly in a poem by Frank O' Hara's poem, "Night Thoughts in Greenwich Village". Underneath the seriousness of the themes running inside the imagery of this poem, O' Hara also is able to capture the paradox of the tragic dilemna. With his poem he even manages to describe the meaningless behind the human condition, resembling the same idea that Albert Camus was trying to relate in , "The Myth Of Syphasus."

"O my coevals ! embarrassing memories ! pastiches ! jokes ! All your pleasaunces and the vividness of your ills are only fertilizer for the kids. Who knows what will be funny next year ? The days will not laugh at what we say is dry, but wheeling ridicule our meanings. The too young find the grave silly and every excess absurd. I, at twenty four, already find the harrowing laugh of children at my heels--- directed at me ! the Dada baby ! How soon must we all get rid of love to save our energy, how

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