1950 - 1960

AMERICAN LITERATURE
POSTWAR
PERIOD
Milošová, Nečasová
 01
BEAT
GENERATION
I feel beaten up by society #emo
#depressed
 WHAT IS BEAT GENERATION?

01 WHEN & WHERE? 02 DEFINITION

1 Dates between 1950 - 1960 1 Social and literary movement

2 San Francisco, Los Angeles 2 Known as ‘‘Beatniks‘‘

03 CHARACTERISTI
C ELEMENTS 3 Collaged prose
4 Psychidelic drugs
Rejection of economic
1 materialism 5 Freedom of speech
2 Exploration of American and 6 Sexual liberation and
Eastern religions jazz
 BEAT GENERATION AUTORS

BURROUGH Experimental novels –

nightmarish, wildly humorous
S world

Asserted unstructured
KEROUAC composition

FERLINGHE His bookshop was gathering

place, City Lights were first to
TTI print Beats‘s books

His poem Howl was the most

GINSBERG representative poetic expression
Beat movement
 JACK KEROUAC
● American novelist and poet

● Horace Mann School -> met friend who

introduced him to jazz

● Columbia University – met Ginsberd &

Burroughs

● Composition – put down feelings and

thoughts without plan

On the Road, Desolation Angels, Trisstesa

 ON THE ROAD

WHAT IS IT
SYMBOLS & FACTS
ABOUT?

1. Vagrancy
• Two men travelling around
2. Travel
America
• Trying to live their life in their 3. Sex
own way
• Autobiographical character Sal 4. Drugs
Paradise 5. Author‘s friends
FIRST EDITION OF THE BOOK

He reportedly wrote this book in three-

week burst with the help of Benzedrine and
caffeine-fueled creativity on a single scroll
of paper
 02
JEWISH
WRITERS
#USJewsHaveSigmaGrindset
 WHO WERE JEWISH
WRITERS?

01 02 WHAT THEY HAVE

BACKGROUND
WRITTEN ABOUT?
1 Immigration 1 Jewish soldiers
Jewish characters became part
2 2 Focused on battlefield
of American history
3 Jews surged into the middle 3 US Jews had it better
class ‘‘Sex sells‘‘
4
 JEWISH WRITERS
BELLOW SALLINGER
works became central to
American literature after The Catcher in the Rye
World War II.

HELLER ROTH
Jewish middle-class life, and the
His novel was significant painful entanglements of sexual
for protest literature and familial love

ASIMOV
writer of science fiction and
of science books for the
layperson
 JOSEPH HELLER

• Flew 60 combat missions

• Worked as an copywriter

Catch-22, Closing Time, Portrait

of an Artist, as an Old Man
 CATCH-22

WHAT IS IT ABOUT? SYMBOLS

• Story about captain Yossarian, 1. Air force
who tries to escape from the air 2. Army
support. 3. War
• Catch-22 prohibits soldiers 4. Desparation
leaving the army 5. Law
• Shows the absurdity of war
 03
SOUTHERN
WRITER(S)
WHO?
 WILLIAM STYRON
treatment of tragic
themes and his use of 01
a rich, classical prose
style.

● Served in U.S. 02
Marines Corps
● Advisory editor

Lie Down in
Darkness, The 03
Confessions of Nat
Turner, Sophie‘s
Choice
 SOPHIE‘S CHOICE

WHAT IS IT
ABOUT? SYMBOLS
• Relationships of three
CHARACTERS 1. Choice
people: Stingo, Nathan and 2. Opression
Sophie – consumed by guilt
Sophie 3. Death
Nathan – has two sides
• Sophie confides to Stingo 4. Nazis
Stingo – sympathetic,
about her past 5. Jews
intelligent
6. WWII
 IS IT TRUE OR FALSE?

TRUE FALSE Beatniks were part of postwar period

TRUE FALSE Postwar period dates between 1945-1980

TRUE FALSE Catch-22 is book from Joseph Keller

TRUE FALSE U.S. Jewish writers wrote about jews in holocaust

TRUE FALSE On the Road is book about cars

THANK YOU
FOR
YOUR
ATTENTION
 RESOURCES
BEAT GENERATION:
● https://www.britannica.com/art/Beat-
movement
● https://www.studysmarter.us/explana
tions/english-literature/literary-move
ments/beat-generation/
● https://www.britannica.com/biograph
y/Jack-Kerouac
JEWISH WRITERS
● https://www.oxfordbibliographies.co
m/display/document/obo-978019984
0731/obo-9780199840731-0160.xml
● https://www.oxfordbibliographies.co
m/display/document/obo-978019984
0731/obo-9780199840731-0113.xml
● https://www.myjewishlearning.com/
article/mainstream-american-jewish-
literature/
● https://www.britannica.com/biograp
hy/Saul-Bellow
 RESOURCES
WILLIAM STYRON: JEWISH WRITERS
● https://www.britannica.com/biograph ● https://www.pbs.org/wnet/american
y/William-Styron masters/saul-bellow-biography-and-l
ife-timeline/24349/
● https://www.pravopisne.cz/autori/wil
liam-styron/ ● https://www.britannica.com/biograp
hy/J-D-Salinger
● https://www.britannica.com/biograp
hy/Philip-Roth
● https://www.britannica.com/biograp
hy/Isaac-Asimov
● https://www.britannica.com/biograp
hy/Joseph-Heller