The Synchrony of the Visionary: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Towards a Transcendental Ontology

The quest for transcendence is a central narrative impulse in the works of Kerouac and Ginsberg, conceived as an alternative epistemological, philosophical, and temporal project to modern American civilization and closely tied to the search for visions. In Kerouac’s road novels, the narrator’s interaction with natural elements shows how the allegorization of nature conveys a mystical sense of timelessness through visions of modern American landscapes. In Ginsberg’s early poetry, particularly “Howl,” the Prophetic mode uproots experiences from the here-and-now and elevates them to a spiritual plane, generating queer visions that oscillate between the temporal and the universal. The essay argues that these allegorical and Prophetic modes function as literary strategies for the visionary, producing a synchrony that collapses linear time and establishes a queer temporality (Muñoz) through which heterodox modes of being emerge. These modes of being are grounded in a transcendental ontology, anticipated by Emerson, in which the embodiment of nature’s spiritual essence is essential to the visionary experience.