Abstract

James Douglas Morrison, commonly known as Jim Morrison from The Doors, was, aside from being a rock star, an American poet that went largely unnoticed by critics and experts alike. Up to this day, Jim Morrison's poetry remains a rather controversial subject matter within academic circles, which often consider it to be vain and trivial due to the combination of Morrison's image as a rock star and the often highly obscure nature of his poetry, but the tide is slowly turning. Academic interest in Morrison's poetry has sparked off around the turn of the century and research has been gradually growing every since. Notwithstanding, an in-depth analysis of the overarching framework of Morrison's poetry has as of yet not been realized. Given the fact that it is hardly impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to analyse Morrison's poetry in a satisfying manner without first fully comprehending the philosophical/theoretical framework enfolding his poetry, most of his literary qualities consequently remain to this day unknown. I therefore decided to use the space of my master dissertation for a first attempt in clarifying Morrison's poetic universe by means of unravelling, decoding and describing the theoretical/philosophical framework around which it is constructed. This framework has been largely influenced by the writings of several European Idealists, most importantly those by William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Antonin Artaud. In describing the theoretical/philosophical framework, this project intends to break open and dissect Morrison's highly obscure and dense poetry in an attempt to accelerate the turning of the tide and prove Morrison's merits as a genuine and valuable contributor to American poetry.