THE BEAT GENERATION

1940-1950ss and later

 What was important in that
period?
• Post WWII period
• Marked economic growth – with an
increase in manufacturing and home
construction 
• The Cold War
• The war in Korea
• The Cuban Revolution (Fulgencio Batista
 by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara)
• The cultural boom (cinema (M.Monroe),
music(Elvis), Literature (new genres))
 “America at this moment,” said the former
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945,
“stands at the summit of the world.”

During the 1950s, it was easy to see what Churchill

meant. The United States was the world’s strongest
military power. Its economy was booming, and the
fruits of this prosperity–new cars, suburban houses
and other consumer goods–were available to more
people than ever before.

However, the 1950s were also an era of great

conflict. For example, the nascent civil rights
movement and the crusade against communism at
home and abroad exposed the underlying divisions
in American society.
A growing group of Americans spoke out
against inequality and injustice during the
1950s.

African Americans had been fighting against

racial discrimination for centuries;
during the 1950s, however, the struggle
against racism and segregation entered the
mainstream of American life. 
(WM)
 New and re-new genres

• Dystopia
• Sci-Fi
• Fantasy (The Fellowship of the Ring)

• Beat Literature
• Literature about little people (like
The Borrowers, Mary Norton (1952)
or J.Steinbeck’s East of Eden)
 The Beat Generation
In the 1940s and 50s, a new generation of
poets and writers rebelled against the
conventions of mainstream American life
and writing.

They became known as the Beat

Generation –a name that evokes
weariness, down-and-outness, the beat
under a piece of music, and beatific
spirituality.  At first, they organized in New
York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The period leading up to the 1950s was considered as the
Era of Conformity. At this time the majority of
Americans were living in suburban areas called
Levittowns, felt threaten by Communism, they were
driven with conspicuous consumption.

Men would go to work all dressing up in a gray or

blue flannel suit while women were domesticated for
they stayed home to cook, clean, and tend the children.
For Americans at that time eating a family dinner and
watching TV every night was considered a conservative
tradition. However this all soon changed during post
WWII. People were tired of the routine and they
felt "beaten" down by the traditional life style. 
Beat literature emerged from the
disillusionment that followed World War
II, a period of unimaginable atrocities
(evil) including the Holocaust and the
use of nuclear weapons against Japan.
Following the end of the war, the United
States and the Soviet Union quickly
entered a Cold War, a period of
geopolitical hostility that created
paranoia and cultural and political
repression at home.
 REPRESENTATIVES
Beat poets sought to write in an authentic, unfettered
style. “First thought, best thought” was how central Beat
poet Allen Ginsberg described their method of
spontaneous writing.
Poetically experimental and politically dissident, the Beat
poets expanded their consciousnesses through
explorations of hallucinogenic drugs, sexual freedom,
Eastern religion, and the natural world.

They took inspiration from jazz musicians, surrealists,

metaphysical poets, visionary poets such as 
William Blake, and haiku and Zen poetry. In his article
“Driving the Beat Road,” Jeff Weiss explains, “More than
a half-century after their emergence, the Beats still offer
up wild style, a sense of freedom and wonder for the
natural world almost unrivaled in postwar literature.”
 The Window
by Diane Di Prima

You are my bread where no light talks

and the hairline this is not time

noise for crossing tongues

of my bones (the sand here

you are almost never shifts)

the sea
I think
you are not stone
tomorrow

or molten sound
turned you with his toe

I think and you will

you have no hands shine

this kind of bird flies backward and shine

and this love unspent and underground

breaks on a windowpane
• It was in 1948 that Jack Kerouac and John Clellon
Holmes stated that the period after the Second World
War should be called the Beat Generation. Those who
were a part of the Beat Generation did not believe in
straight jobs and they lived in dirty apartments selling
drugs and committing crimes.

• Some of the Beat Generation beliefs include the

rejection of mainstream American values, exploring
alternate forms of sexuality (homosexuality),
and experimentation with drugs.

• The beat generation was meant to echo the Lost

Generation in the 1920s but it made a bigger impact
that it’s historical counter part.
 The originally three that started the Beat
Generation were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg,
William Burroughs  who met  each other at
Columbia university 1948.

In the Mid 1950s the Beat Generation expanded

when the original three began to be associated with
other writers in the San Francisco Renaissance.

The majority of the Beat Generation's fame come

from the development of Ginsberg' book "Howl",
Burrough’s "Naked Lunch", and Kerouac's "On the
Road" and it was because of those books did people
start to pay attention to beat literature.
For a majority of the time those associated with the Beat
Generation were viewed as rebels without. Those involved
were willing to print or publish anything that society did not
view appropriate. Of course those topics include the following:
sex, drugs, homosexuality, and zen Buddhism.

In 1958 a Journalist from the San Fransico Chronicle name Herb

Caen coined the term “Beatniks” as a reference to  the
Russian “Sputniks” because the Beat Generation was
considered a treat to American Society.

Citizens believed that the Beatniks were ill-mannered

and undisciplined however that was soon changed when
Kerouac came as host of a talk show. There he explained the
reason behind the Beat Generation and helped educated the
American Society of their cause. It was also there that he read
"On the Road" for the millions of Americans watching. 
The impact that the Beat Generation had on America
was no way insignificant. It was because of the Beat
Generation that people began to question the society
they lived in and stepped out of it.

The Beat Generation also set precedent for many

important things such as the hippies and anti-
war movement. In addition to that their beliefs
influence musicians such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles,
and Elvis Presley.
 
They helped bring awareness and battle racism in
America. People like Dizze Gillespie and Charlie Parker,
two “American American” Musicians, were inspired to
play Jazz music without the worries of racial barriers.   
• Jack Kerouac was an American writer best known
for the novel 'On the Road,' which became an
American classic, pioneering the Beat Generation
• Kerouac's most famous novels include Book of
Dreams (1961), Big Sur (1962), Visions of
Gerard (1963) and Vanity of Duluoz (1968).
Kerouac also wrote poetry in his later years,
composing mostly long-form free verse as well as
his own version of the Japanese haiku form.
• William S. Burroughs was a Beat Generation writer
known for his startling, nontraditional accounts of drug
culture, most famously in the book Naked Lunch.
• Burroughs published his first novel, Junky, in 1953 under
the name William Lee. The work featured an unflinching,
semi-autobiographical look at drug, or "junk," culture. 
Burroughs continued his literary pursuits as well in the
early ‘70s, publishing The Wild Boys: A Book of the
Dead (1971) and Exterminator! (1973) and penning a
screenplay, The Last Words of Dutch Schulz. By the end of
the decade, he worked on a book with Gysin that delved
into their cut-up philosophy—The Third Mind (1978).
• Irwin Allen Ginsberg is one of the most influential
poets, regarded as a founding father of the Beat
Movement and known for works like "Howl.“

• "Howl" was an eye-opening work in its explorations

of sexuality, anguish and social issues in non-
traditional poetic form, relying on a freewheeling
mix of influences.

• Ginberg's next published work, Kaddish and Other

Poems 1958-1960, featured the poem ''Kaddish for
Naomi Ginsberg (1894-1956),'' which explored his
mother's past and his feelings about their
relationship. It is regarded by many as one of his
strongest, most affecting works.
• Ginsberg was prolific with his writing during
the '60s, with some of his published titles
including Reality Sandwiches (1963)
and Planet News 1961-1967 (1969), and
also worked with musical forms as well.

• Ginsberg also came up with the phrase

"flower power," which he used to describe
the peace movements that fueled much of
the anti-war demonstrations he took part
in, including his protests against the
Vietnam War.