The Beat Movement was a literary and visual arts movement active from the early 1940's through the early 1960's in the United States of America. The movement was started by a group of poets and writers from Columbia University and spread across the country to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, CA.
The Beats were a post-war movement that rejected materialism, consumerism, and the artistic and cultural flattening of early 20th century America. The movement was predicated around personal freedom, and its proponents experimented with everything from sexual freedom to illicit drug use and experiments with Eastern religions.
The word "beat" refers simultaneously to the feeling of being "beat down" by the world, but also beatific, as spiritual and person enlightenment were key to the Beat philosophy.
Beats Generation Literature[]
The Beats movement was largely centered on rejection of Capitalism in the U.S. and largely explicit themes (sex and drugs). Their texts were known to be honest and self-revealing, and usually improvisational. Most authors would publish works without revising them or editing them after they finished their works.
Such works like Howl, Kaddish, and Junkie
Allen Ginsberg
concentrate on truthfulness on different subjects matter, and the authors auto-evaluate themselves to be as honest and as sincere as they can be to their audience. The Subterraneans and Naked Lunch focus more on political critiques, while Mountains and Rivers without End and On the Road were epic-style texts that would portray long journeys or trips across the United States.
Beat Writers[]
Neal Cassady[]
Neal Cassady played a very important role when the Beat generation broke out. He received a great amount of attention for his work. He first became famous when he played the role of Dean Moriarty in On The Road. After selling and becoming more addicted to drugs, Cassady was arrested for selling drugs and served two years in prison. Heavy drug use after he was released from prison then lead to his death near after. His autobiography was published after he died and it was called The First Third. The First Third, Neal describes memories from his childhood, encounters he had with women, and his travels. more
Allen Ginsberg[]
Allen Ginsberg is the greatest poet who plays a vital role in the beat generation and known as a leading figure. He was one of many influential American writers of his time. His style of writing against militarism, materialism and sexual repression. He savored American poet Walt Whitman with free verse style and the epic. Ginsberg was highly opposed to the promise of American democracy, and we can find that he always tried to pursue the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence through his writings.
Jack Kerouac[]
Jack Kerouac was born to French Canadian parents in Lowell, Massachusetts. Along with William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac was a prominent leader of the beat generation. Kerouac was well known for his spontaneous prose style of writing that was heavily influenced by the structure of jazz music. Kerouac often wrote about topics such as travel, drugs, Buddhism, Catholicism, jazz, and sexuality and did not believe in revision. Kerouac's mother, Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, was a devout Catholic and played a very important role in Kerouac's life. Kerouac's successful high school football career led him to attend Columbia University, but after an injury ended his football career he dropped out. After his time at Columbia, he spent some time in New York City where he met Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. One of Kerouac's most famous pieces of literature was the novel On the Road in which he wrote about his travels with Cassady across the country. After suffering the loss of his sister, mother and Cassady, Kerouac passed away from internal hemorrhaging in the fall of 1969.