The Beat Generation: A Beginner's GuideThe Beat Generation were a revolutionary group of poets, drifters, musicians, and visionaries whose gritty spontaneous prose explored alienation, repression, and what it meant to be a member of the human race in post-WWII American society. Through the iconic personalities of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, and Burroughs, along with women writers, musicians, and artists, Christopher Gair charts the emergence and true significance of the group, revealing how their fresh approach to literature and a bohemian lifestyle created one of the most exciting and important movements in American literature. Half a century after the publication of the modern classics "Howl" and "On the Road", the movement continues to attract scores of new readers, influencing everything from bebop to the Beastie Boys. |
Contents
The birth of Beat | 25 |
Beat and the San Francisco | 57 |
King of the Beats | 77 |
Copyright | |
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African American alienation Allen Ginsberg American culture artistic avant-garde Baraka Beat Generation's Beat history beatnik Bebop became Blake Brando Burroughs's Carolyn Carr's Cassady's Charlie childhood City Lights Columbia cont Corso countercultural critics Dean Moriarty death decade despite Dharma Bums Diane di Prima Doctor Sax early Ferlinghetti fiction figures friends Gary Snyder Ginsberg and Kerouac Glassman Greenwich Village Herbert Huncke homosexual Howl Jack Kerouac Japhy jazz John Clellon Holmes Jones Kammerer Kerouac and Ginsberg later Legend of Duluoz LeRoi lifestyle literary living London Lowell Lucien Carr Maggie Cassidy male Beats McClure musicians narrative Neal Cassady Negro Nicosia novel numbers Parker poems poet poetry political Pollock published rejection relationship Rexroth Rimbaud Road San Francisco Renaissance scene sexual significant Six Gallery spent spontaneous prose style Subterraneans suggests tion Transcendentalists transformation Tytell Vanity of Duluoz verse vision Vollmer Whitman William Burroughs women writers York young