The Beat Generation
The beat generation
• In influence and cultural status they were more visible than any other
competing aesthetic.
• They saw runaway capitalism as destructive to the human spirit and antithetical
to social equality
• They saw runaway capitalism as destructive to the human spirit and antithetical
to social equality.
• The Beats stood in opposition to the clean, almost antiseptic formalism of the
early twentieth century Modernists.
(The Big Generation, s.f.)
The beat generation
• Underground music styles like jazz were especially evocative for
Beat writers, while threatening and sinister to the establishment.
• The artistic productions of the Beats crossed the line into
pornography and therefore merited censorship.
• It pulled from a variety of source materials to construct their
particular vision of literature and culture.
(The Big Generation, s.f.)
Beat writers
Jack Kerouac
• (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American
novelist and poet .The best known of the writes of The
Beat Generation
• Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous
prose.
• Thematically, his work covers topics such as: Catholic
spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty,
and travel.
• He became an underground celebrity and
a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he
remained antagonistic toward some of its politically
radical elements.
• In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal
hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking.
Knight, Brenda (1996). Beat Generation
• On the Road
Jack Kerouac’s Books
• Town and the City
• Doctor Sax
• The Dharma Bums
• Mexico City Blues
• The Subterraneans
On the Road is a novel based on the travels
• Desolation Angels of Kerouac and his friends across the United
States. It is considered a defining work of the
• Visions of Cody postwar Beat and Counterculture generation
s, with its protagonists living life against a
• The Sea Is My Brother
backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use
Knight, Brenda (1996). Beat Generation
William Seward Burroughs
II
• (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an
American writer and visual artist.
• Burroughs was a primary figure of the Beat
Generation and a major postmodernist author
whose influence is considered to have affected
a range of popular culture as well as literature.
• Burroughs wrote eighteen novels, six
collections of short stories and four collections
of essays.
Morgan, Ted (1988).
William Seward’s Books
• Naked Lunch The novel was included in Time magazine's "100 Best English-
language Novels from 1923 to 2005“
• Yonqui
• The Soft Machine
• The Wild Boys
Morgan, Ted (1988).
Allen Ginsberg
• (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an
American poet, philosopher, and writer.
• He vigorously opposed militarism, economic
materialism and sexual repression and was
known as embodying various aspects of this
counterculture, such as his views on drugs,
hostility to bureaucracy and openness
to Eastern religions.
• Ginsberg entered academia, teaching poetry
as Distinguished Professor of English
at Brooklyn College from 1986 until his death.
Ginsberg, Allen (2000)
Allen Ginsberg´s WORKS
• Howl and Other Poems
• Kaddish and Other Poems
• Empty Mirror: Early Poems
• Reality Sandwiches
• Planet News
• Indian Journals
First edition
(Pocket Poets Series from City Lights
Books)
Konigsberg, Eric (February 29, 2008)
Culture and influences
Culture and influences
Sexuality
Drug use
Romanticism
Sexuality
One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat
Generation was free love and sexual liberation, which
strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at
the time.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (2018)
Drug use
The original members of the Beat Generation used a
number of different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana,
Benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs such
as peyote, Ayahuasca, and LSD.
They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being
unfamiliar with their effects; their drug use was broadly
inspired by intellectual interest and many Beat writers felt their
drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight or productivity.
The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social
events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (2018)
Influece in The Beat Generation
Influece in The Beat Generation
• The Beat Generation pulled from a variety of source materials to
construct their particular vision of literature and culture. Several of
the Beat artists claimed that Romantic poets are major influence on
their work. Some of those Romantic poets include Percy Bysshe
Shelley and William Blake. These two poets are often seen as the
inspirations for Beat artists such as Ginsberg and Kerouac.
(AP Comp: The Beat Generation)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792-1822)
One of the major English
Romantic poets.
William Blake
(1957-1827)
English poet, painter,
and printmaker.
• Romanticism inspired the artists of the Beat Generation
because of their style: more personal expression of
passion, challenged readers to open their minds
and imagination, different religion beliefs, different
lifestyles are shown throughout the corpus work of the
Beat artists. They want personal expression and the
development of socialized community to play major
roles in their writing.
(AP Comp: The Beat Generation)
• Conversely, the artistic production of the American Modernists was in many
ways reviled by the Beats. (Rahn, 2011)
• Modernist literature is more openly emotional, confessional, and disjointed
than the stodgy stuff that came out of the Victorian Era. Modernist writers
gave readers their first tastes of real human, scandal: sex, alienation,
revolution, class struggles, racial tension and more. Post-modernism lived
those scandals. (Shmoop Premium, 2018)
• Besides the influence from these movements, the artists of the
Beat Generation are inspired to break out of the social norm.
They want to be different from the typical writers who tend to
write about the perfect society and lifestyles instead of what
the society and people are really about. The artists of this
movement want the readers to see the qualities of reality, real
life, and the wrongdoing of people in the society. Instead of just
portraying the good and positive things about the society and
its people, the writers also reveal the bad things of the society.
(AP Comp: The Beat Genertaion)
Early American Sources
Henry David Thoreau
• One of America's most famous writers,
Henry David Thoreau is remembered for
his philosophical and naturalist writings.
His father operated a local pencil factory,
and his mother rented out parts of the
family's home to boarders.
Morgan, Ted (1988)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American
Transcendentalist poet, philosopher and
essayist during the 19th century. One of his
best-known essays is "Self-Reliance.
Morgan, Ted (1988)
Herman Melville
• Celebrated American author
Herman Melville wrote 'Moby-
Dick' and several other sea-
adventure novels, before turning
to poetry later in his literary
career.
Morgan, Ted (1988)
Walt Whitman
• Walt Whitman was an American
poet whose verse collection
'Leaves of Grass' is a landmark
in the history of American
literature.
Morgan, Ted (1988)
French Surreallism
Philip Lamantia
• Lamantia’s association with the
Beats marks the second phase of
his career. Lamantia’s
independence was unrivaled. He
didn’t need public adulation and
didn’t know how to make small
talk. While others made
pronouncements, he “read the
spells of Egyptian patiently.”
Chartes, Ann (1992).
Arthur Rimbaud
• Arthur Rimbaud, in full Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud,
(born October 20, 1854, Charleville, France—died
November 10, 1891, Marseille), French poet and
adventurer who won renown in the Symbolis movement
and markedly influenced modern poetry.
Chartes, Ann (1992).
Guillaume Apollinaire
• French poet and art critic
Guillaume Apollinaire became
famous for his experimental verse
and for his support of avant-garde
art movements such as Cubism.
Charters, Ann (1992)
Influence in the American Culture
(most important effects)
Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution“ and somewhat
catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther
activism.
Liberation of the world from censorship.
Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other
drugs.
The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high
art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin,
and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and
sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works Chartes, Ann (2001).
The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized
early by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the
notion of a "Fresh Planet.“
Opposition to the military-industrial machine
civilization, as emphasized in writings
Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a Chartes, Ann (2001).
"second religiousness" developing within an
advanced civilization.
Their influence can be seen on the Hippie movement of the 60's and
70's.
Chartes, Ann (2001).
• Its aesthetic was absorbed by mass culture and by the middle
class towards the end of the fifties and early sixties. On the way,
for example, it became a cult work of youth.
• Their song of spiritual liberation led to a sexual liberation that
became a catalyst in the liberation movements of women and
blacks, the rise of the hippie counterculture and indirectly the
liberation of homosexuals.
Chartes, Ann (2001).
References
• AP Comp: The Beat Genertaion
• Bentley, 2018
• Chartes, Ann (2001). Beat Down to your soul: What was the Beat Generation?. Penguin Books
• Chartes, Ann (1992) The Portable Beat Reader
• Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (2008)
• Ginsberg, Allen (2000), Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952–1995. Foreword by Edward Sanders. New
York: Harper Collins, pp. xx–xxi
• Knight, Brenda (1996). Beat Generation
• Konigsberg, Eric (February 29, 2008) "Buckley's Urbane Debating Club: Firing Line Set a Standard For
Political Discourse on TV“
• Morgan, Ted (1988). Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs. New York: Avon
• Rahn, 2011
• Shmoop Premium, 2018
• The Big Generation. (s.f.). Obtenido de The Literature Network:
http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php
