The Beat Generation

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The Beat Generation
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The Beat Generation

• The Beat Generation is a term used to describe
  both
• a group of American writers who came to
  prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
• the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and
  inspired (later sometimes called "beatniks").

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Origins

• Author Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat
  Generation" in 1948.
• Kerouac was generalizing from his social circle
  to characterize the underground, anti-conformist
  youth gathering in New York at that time.
• The press often used the term "Beat Generation"
  in reference to a small group of writers

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Jack Kerouac

• Amongst the best known of the writers known as
  the Beat Generation.
• Kerouac's work was popular, but received little
  critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, he
  is considered an important and influential writer
  who inspired others.
• Best known for On the Road (1958).

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On the Road

• Based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac
  and his friends across mid-century America.
• It is often considered a defining work of the
  postwar Beat Generation that was inspired by
  jazz, poetry, and drug experiences.
• When the book was originally released, the New
  York Times hailed it as "the most beautifully
  executed, the clearest and most important
  utterance" of Kerouac's generation.

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Allen Ginsberg

• Another well known writer in the Beat Generation.
• Best known for Howl (1956), a long poem
  celebrating his friends of the Beat Generation
  and attacking what he saw as the destructive
  forces of materialism and conformity in the
  United States at the time.

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Howl

• Written in 1955 it consisted of 3 parts.
• Famous line from
• I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
  by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging
  themselves through the negro streets at dawn
  looking for an angry fix Angel-headed hipsters
  burning for the ancient heavenly connection to
  the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

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William S. Burroughs

• Primary member of the Beat Generation, he was an
  avant-garde author who affected popular culture
  as well as literature.
• Much of his work is semi-autobiographical, drawn
  from his experiences as an opiate addict.

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Naked Lunch

• Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100
  Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
• Drawn from Burroughs own experience in and his
  addiction to drugs.
• The way that the novel is written is interesting,
  with many sub-stories all feeding into the plot.

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Gregory Corso

• American poet, youngest of the inner circle of
  Beat Generation writers.
• Spent several of this youth in jail where he read
  constantly.
• Met Ginsberg (who recognized Corsos talent) when
  he got out jail.
• 1st Beat writer to actual be published.

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Importance

• The Beats represented a part of American society
  that rebelled against the status quo of the
  1950s.
• Echoes of the Beat Generation can be seen
  throughout many other modern subcultures, such as
  "hippies" and "punks".