For the subculture surrounding the literary movement, see Beatnik. For the play, see Beat Generation (play).
Notable writers of the Beat Generation include (from left): William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. All were from the previous generation.
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era.[1] The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.[2][3]
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959), and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best-known examples of Beat literature.[4] Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States.[5][6] The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.
The core group of Beat Generation authors—Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures, except Burroughs and Carr, ended up together in San Francisco, where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.
In the 1950s, a Beatnik subculture formed around the literary movement, although this was often viewed critically by major authors of the Beat movement. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus Furthur, was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture, in which he actively participated. The hippie culture was practiced primarily by older members of the following generation.
^Evans, Mike, The Beats: from Kerouac to Kesey : an illustrated journey through the Beat Generation, Running Press, Introduction
^The Beat Generation – Literature Periods & Movements.
^Charters, Ann (2001). Beat Down to Your Soul: What was the Beat Generation?. Penguin Books. ISBN 0141001518.
^Charters (1992) The Portable Beat Reader.
^Ann Charters, introduction, to Beat Down to Your Soul, Penguin Books (2001) ISBN 978-0-14100-151-7 p. xix "[...] the conclusion of the obscenity trial in San Francisco against Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems [...] in which Judge Clayton W. Horn concluded for the defendant that 'Howl' had what he called 'redeeming social content.'", p. xxxiii "After the successful Howl trial, outspoken and subversive literary magazines sprung up like wild mushrooms throughout the United States."
^Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw, New York: Avon, 1988. p. 347, trade paper edition ISBN 0-380-70882-5: "The ruling on Naked Lunch in effect marked the end of literary censorship in the United States."
The BeatGeneration was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics...
similar ideas, problems, and attitudes (e.g., BeatGeneration and Lost Generation). A familial generation is a group of living beings constituting a single...
alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the BeatGeneration. Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking...
maintained in the 1950s by counterculture poets like those of the Beatgeneration, and adapted in modern times into hip-hop music and live poetry events...
action, or beat, in acting BeatGenerationBeat (name), a Swiss German male given name Jackie Beat, drag persona of Kent Fuher (born 1963) Aone Beats (born...
The Silent Generation, also known as the Traditionalist Generation, is the Western demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the...
Published by Atticus Press, 1983. ISBN 0-912377-00-3. The Birth of the BeatGeneration: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944-1960, by Steven Watson. Published...
Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the BeatGeneration. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual...
life with her first husband, Jack Kerouac, and the early days of the BeatGeneration. While an art student under George Grosz at Barnard College, she and...
up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies adopted the language and countercultural values of the BeatGeneration. Hippies created...
Many in the blossoming underground movement were influenced by 1950s Beatgeneration writers such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, who paved the...
2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the BeatGeneration in the 1940s and also a convicted manslaughterer. He later worked for...
sublabels: Deep Funk, and Urban Theory. BBE is also notable for its BeatGeneration series of LPs. BlackCoffee Bombay Monkey Dark Room Notes J Dilla (deceased)...
States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of...
rather than the BeatGeneration literary movement of the 1950s. As the initial wave of rock and roll subsided in the later 1950s, "big beat" music, later...
bohemian impulse was famously seen in the 1940s hipsters, the 1950s Beatgeneration (exemplified by writers such as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg...
(1958) at Warner Brothers, High School Confidential (1958), and The BeatGeneration (1959), the latter two at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But Van Doren was just...
Bethge's text. Li Bai's poetry can be seen as having an influence on BeatGeneration writer Gary Snyder during Snyder's years of studying Asian culture...
Hyoyeon from Girls' Generation, Seulgi and Wendy from Red Velvet, and Karina and Winter from Aespa. All members of Got the Beat are part of SM Entertainment's...
religion and spirituality. It is directly influenced and inspired by the BeatGeneration, and American involvement in the Vietnam War. From around 1967, its...
Readings by Jack Kerouac on the BeatGeneration is the third and final spoken word album by the American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, released in January...
Global Information
