Beat Generation: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

A group of American writers and artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, influenced by Eastern philosophy and religion and known especially for their use of nontraditional forms and their rejection of conventional social values.
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The beats emerged in and around in New York City in the 1940s. Picking up the word "beat" from their friend Herbert Huncke, the original beat writers, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, used it to describe their free-form, improvisational style of writing and their unconventional, spontaneous way of life. Joined by writers such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and Gregory Corso, the movement flowered in California in the mid-1950s and influenced much of the cultural rebellion of the 1960s.

At the Six Gallery in on 7 October 1955 Ginsberg gave the first public reading of "Howl," a poem characteristically full of vivid imagery, confessional candor, and unbridled self-expression that authorities subsequently labeled vulgar. Ferlinghetti, the director of San Francisco's City Lights Books, was in the audience, and he offered to publish Ginsberg's work. The resulting Howl and Other Poems (1956) gave rise to a censorship trial that brought the beats into the public eye for the first time and cast them as literary rebels prepared to test the limits of censorship and social convention.

The most famous beat novel, Kerouac's On the Road, was written in 1951 but was not published until 1957. Based on his adventures with Neal Cassady in the late 1940s, the book reportedly encouraged countless others to seek personal fulfillment through the pursuit of an existential lifestyle. The success of On the Road thrust Kerouac into the spotlight, where he was acclaimed the "avatar" of the beat generation.

Unprepared for fame and ill-equipped to deal with the critical backlash that followed, Kerouac withdrew from the media glare, dropped his beat friends, and distanced himself from the actions and ideals of those who claimed him as an inspiration. When Ginsberg became an important player in the activism of the 1960s, Kerouac denounced his former friend as "anti-American."
Originally derided by most serious critics and lampooned as "beatniks" by the popular media, the beats were rehabilitated in the 1970s.

Their work, the basis of numerous academic courses and the subject of hundreds of books, significantly changed American literary conventions and values, and their lifestyle inspired restless souls and cultural rebels of all stripes. In June 2001 the manuscript of On the Road sold at auction for $2.43 million.

Charters, Ann, ed. The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin, 1992.

George-Warren, Holly, ed. The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation in American Culture. New York: Hyperion, 1999.

Tytell, John. Naked Angels. New York: Grove Press, 1976.

Watson, Steven. The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944–1960. New York: Pantheon, 1995.

friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that time to the generation, titled Go, in 1952, along with a of sorts in the or "down and out," but Kerouac added the paradoxical connotations of upbeat, , and the musical association of being "on the ."
Calling this relatively small group of struggling writers, students, hustlers, and drug addicts a "generation" was to make the claim that they were representative and important—the beginnings of a new trend, analogous to the influential .
In trying to define the "Beat Generation" it's important to note that "Beat Generation" was originally a reference, not only to Kerouac's inner-circle, but to the burgeoning counter-culture.

The press attached to the name "Beat Generation" as a reference to only a small group of writers, friends of Ginsberg, Kerouac or Burroughs. Thus the joke among Beat writers (attributed to both forms: "Three friends does not make a generation." The press also mistakenly pointed to Ginsberg and Kerouac as leaders.

This often leads to confusion about who actually belongs in the so-called "Beat Generation." Writers who may qualify as part of the "Beat Generation" may deny they were ever a part of it based on this limiting definition the press had given it. For example, they'll say they're friends with Ginsberg and Kerouac, not followers.

This leads to two ways to identify writers as members of the "Beat Generation," a broad and narrow definition. A narrow definition of the Beat Generation would include only the closest friends who relatively consistently defined themselves as "Beat" writers; this list may include: Ginsberg, Kerouac, , , and . If "Beat Generation" is defined broadly, this smaller group is often just called "The New York Beats," though Orlovsky had little connection with New York.

, one of the most important figures of this group, always adamantly denied he was a part of the "Beat Generation," but an accurate list of the close inner-circle would have to include him. Even Kerouac in his later career denied he was part of the "Beat Generation." In this sense movements like the and the would be completely separate movements.

late 1950's, early 1960's, who shared many of the same themes, ideas, intentions, etc. (for example, dedication to spontaneity, open form composition, subjectivity, and so on). Friendship, or at least a brief association, with Ginsberg or Kerouac would be an indication that a writer belongs in this broadly defined list of "Beat" writers.

This list would include: San Francisco so much earlier that it's difficult to call them part of the same "generation." They include the figure head of the San Francisco Renaissance, and figure head of the Black Mountain School of poetry. Also, so many of these writers either idol and followed his admonition to speak with an American voice, that Beat writers are often seen as being the children of Williams.

By either definition, the members of the Beat Generation were new ecstatic epicureans, who often engaged in a spontaneous creativity. The style of their work may seem chaotic, but the chaos was purposeful; it highlighted the primacy of such Beat Generation essentials as spontaneity, open emotion, visceral engagement in often gritty worldly experiences. The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.

The first "Beat" work to gain nationwide attention was Ginsberg's "Howl." An obscenity trial helped fuel its fame. One of the most enduringly famous "Beat" works, Kerouac's On The Road (written in 1952), which heralded the beginning of "Beat" popularity, was not published until 1957, in a sense capitalizing on the fame brought by the "Howl" obscenity trial.

Burroughs' magnum opus Naked Lunch likewise went to trial for obscenity. Both obscenity trials helped to liberalize what could be legally published in the United States. From then on if anything was deemed to have literary value it was no longer considered obscene.

" ," " ," etc). Also, since the "Beat in fostering the image of the rebellious rock star. The Beat Generation can be seen as the first modern and the first fully American literary movement since the .

See the " " section below.
the country is part of their romanticized image, most of the central figures (excluding Burroughs) ended up together in San center of creativity. This included who was the first to actually be called a "beatnik.

" Also of significance were , , , and members of the recently dissolved Black Mountain College looking for a new center of communal creativity, poets such as and .
Many writers were inspired by the publication of "Howl" and On the Road and decided to join the group. The Beats met most of these writers when they returned to New York: , , , .

The of poets, (including , , , and , though Ashbery and Schuyler weren’t quite as closely associated with the Beats) which had already been established as a movement in New York, found much in common with this ever-widening circle and consistently promoted one another's work.
Perhaps equally important were the less obviously creative members of the scene, who helped form their intellectual to one another; and Hal Chase, an anthropologist from who in 1947 introduced Beat literature.
Also important were the oft-neglected women in the original circle, including and .

Their apartment in the upper west side of Manhattan often functioned as a salon (or as Ted Morgan puts it, a "pre-sixties commune") and Joan Vollmer in particular was a serious participant in the marathon discussion sessions.
anti-academic artists, the seed for the Beat Generation was planted in a highly academic environment. For example, many of their Mark VanDoran.

It was the same environment in which classmates such as and became champions of formalism. This is where Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from ) to move away from Columbia University's conservative notions of literature. With the introduction of Burroughs, Huncke, and Cassady, the new focus became real life experiences instead of academic intellectualizing.

Perhaps the most important early experience that drew most of the members of the Beat Generation together was Lucian Carr's stabbing of David Kammerer. It's one reason Burroughs maintained his close-but-distant relationship with the rest of the Beats. It was an incident Kerouac tried to capture twice, in his first novel The Town and the City and one of his last, The Vanity of older than most of the other original beats.

While still living in St. Louis, Burroughs met David and intellectual tendencies.
As a boys' youth-group leader in the mid-1930s, David Kammerer became infatuated with the young (with what encouragement, if any, it is difficult to say).

Kammerer formed a pattern of following Carr around the country as he attended (and was expelled from) different colleges. In the fall of 1942, at the University of Chicago, Kammerer introduced 17-year-old Lucien Carr to William S. Burroughs.

Burroughs was a Harvard-graduate who lived off a stipend from his relatively wealthy family. His grandfather had invented the Burroughs Adding Machine, though the amount of wealth in the family is often exaggerated (Kerouac remarked on "the Burroughs The three became good friends, whose sprees got Burroughs kicked out of his rooming house and culminated in Carr confined in a In the spring of 1943, Carr's family moved him to Columbia University in New York, where Kammerer, and then Burroughs shortly followed.
At Columbia, Carr met the freshman Allen Ginsberg, whom he introduced to Burroughs and Kammerer.

Edie Parker, another member of the crowd, introduced Carr to her boyfriend Jack Kerouac once he came back from his stint as a merchant marine. In 1944, Carr introduced Kerouac and Burroughs.
Kammerer's fixation was obvious to everyone in the circle, and he became jealous as Carr developed a relationship with a young woman (Celine Young).

In mid-August, 1944, Lucien Carr killed him with a boy scout knife in what may have been self-defense after Carr disposed of the body into the river. He first went to Burroughs for advice, who recommended he get a lawyer and turn himself in with a claim of self-defense. Instead, Carr went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of the weapon.

Carr turned himself in the next morning and Kerouac and Burroughs were both charged as accessories to the crime. Burroughs quickly got the money for bail, but Kerouac's parents refused to post it for him. Edie Parker and her family came through, with the condition that they be married immediately.

Burroughs had long had an interest in experimenting with criminal behavior, and gradually made contacts in the criminal underground of New York, becoming involved with dealing in stolen goods and narcotics and developing a decades long addiction to . Burroughs met Herbert Huncke, a small-time criminal and drug addict who often hung around the area.
The beats found Huncke a fascinating character.

As Ginsberg put it, they were on a quest for "supreme reality", and felt that Huncke, as a member of the under-class, had learned things they were sheltered from in their middle/upper-middle class lives.
stolen goods, he had been riding in a car full of stolen goods, and so on). He pleaded insanity and was briefly committed to indulged in some self-consciously "crazy" behavior, e.

g. throwing potato salad at a lecturer on . Ted Morgan also mentions an incident where he stole a peanut butter sandwich in a cafeteria, and showed it to a security guard.

If not crazy when he was admitted, Solomon was arguably driven mad by the applied at Bellevue, and this is one of the things referred to in Ginsberg's poem "Howl" (which was dedicated to Carl Solomon). After his release, Solomon became the another episode resulted in him being committed again.
The introduction of into the scene in 1947 had a number of effects.

A 40s became a focus of his second novel, . Cassady is one of the sources of himself, though the core writers of the group were impressed with the free-flowing style of some of his letters, and Kerouac On the Road, written somewhat in this style, transformed Cassady (under the name "Dean Moriarty") into a cultural icon: a hyper wildman, frequently broke- going from woman to woman, car to car, town to town; largely amoral, but frantically engaged with life.
place much earlier, beginning in the late 40s.

Since the book was not published until 1957, many people received the impression that it was describing the late '50s era, though it was actually a document of a time ten years earlier.
The legend of how "On the Road" was written was as influential as the book itself: high on speed, Kerouac typed rapidly on a continuous scroll of telegraph paper to avoid having to break his chain of thought at the end of each sheet of paper. Kerouac's there remains some question about how carefully Kerouac observed this rule.

Although Kerouac maintained he wrote this particular book in one mad 3-week burst, it is clear from manuscript evidence that he had previously written several drafts and had been contemplating the novel for years. Also, the text went through many changes between the final "roll" manuscript and the published version- more evidence to suggest Kerouac's deviation from his dictum- although, to be fair, he had written the book before devising this code.
In 1950 met Ginsberg, who was impressed by the poetry Corso had written while incarcerated for burglary.

Gregory Corso was the young added to the original three of the core beat writers, and for decades the four were often spoken of together; though later critical attention for Corso (the least prolific of the four) waned. Corso's first book The Vestal Lady on Brattle and Other Poems appeared in 1955.
writers (Ginsberg, Corso, Cassady and Kerouac each moved there for a time).

Ferlinghetti (one of the partners who ran the poet Rexroth, whose apartment became a Friday night literary salon. Ginsberg was introduced to Rexroth by an introductory letter from his mentor , an old friend of Rexroth's. When Ginsberg organized the famous in 1955, he had Rexroth MC; in a sense Rexroth was bridging two generations.

This was the first public appearance of Ginsberg's poem and is considered one of the most important moments in the Beat Generation: it brought East Coast and West Gallery poets around California. Soon after the Six Gallery reading, Ferlinghetti wrote Ginsberg a letter, saying, "I greet you at the beginning of a brilliant career. When do I get the manuscript?

" This was an adaptation of Emerson's comment about Whitman's poetry, a prophecy of sorts that Howl would bring as much energy to this new movement as Whitman brought to 19th century poetry. This is also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement since the publication of Howl and the subsequent obscenity trial brought nationwide attention to many of the other members of this group.
movement had urban backgrounds and they found Snyder to be an almost exotic individual, with his backcountry and rural experience, and his education in and Oriental languages.

that Kerouac and Snyder have towards it. The Dharma Bums undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the .
There is typically very little mention of women in a history of the early Beat Generation, and a strong argument can be made the actual state of affairs.

(later, Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs) was clearly there at the beginning of the Beat Generation, and all accounts describe her as a very intelligent and interesting woman. But she did not herself write and publish, and unlike , no one chose to write a book about her; she has gone down in history as the wife of William S. Burroughs, killed by him in a shooting incident.

(This is sometimes termed "accidental" but the actual events allow for multiple interpretations

insisted that there were many female beats, in particular, he claimed that a young woman he met in mid-1955 (Hope Savage, also called "Sura") introduced Kerouac and Ginsberg to subjects such as exaggeration, however: a letter from Kerouac to Ginsberg in 1954 recommended a number of works about Buddhism).
Corso insisted that it was hard for women to get away with a Bohemian existence in that era: they were regarded as crazy, and removed from the scene by force (e.g.

by being subjected to ).

I can't say a lot of really great women writers were ignored in my time, but I can say a lot of potentially great women writers wound up dead or crazy. I think of the women on the Beat scene with me in the early '50s, where are they now?

I know is a potter and does some writing in Vermont, and that's about all I know. I know some of them ODed and some of them got nuts, and one woman that I was running around the Village with in '53 was killed by However, a number of female beats have persevered, notably (author of Flies Backward, Memoirs of a Beatnik). Later, other women writers emerged who were strongly influenced by the beats, such as (published by ) in the 1960s, and in the early 1970s.

Collaborations, Inspirations, and References

Collaboration and mutual inspiration are essential aspects of movements; this is certainly true for the Beat Generation. Here are a few examples of collaborations, mutual promotion and inspiration, and references in works by Beat associates to other writers of the broadly defined Beat Generation.
Generation.

He considered himself a pro bono literary agent for all of his friends and for those with similar ideas. For example, ( ) published. Ginsberg encouraged Burroughs to write in the first place.

He did extensive editing on Naked Lunch with some help from Kerouac and others. Burroughs and Ginsberg also collaborated on the book, .

and William S.

Burroughs collaborated early on a parody of hardboiled

references many important Beat figures in his novel. Two of his most as prominent characters.

The Beats often provided names for one another's work.

The naming of two important works is the subject of Beat legend. Kerouac already had the title "Howl for Carl Solomon." It's uncertain why Ginsberg would give Kerouac credit, but it's unsurprising considering the nature of their relationship.

Kerouac also provided the name " " -- according to legend, when Ginsberg asked what it meant, Kerouac said he didn't know but they'd figure it out. Ginsberg gives some suggestions in a later poem: "On Burroughs' Work." He says, "A naked lunch is natural to us,/we eat reality sandwhiches.

" Ginsberg also supposedly coined the term "the subterraneans" (an early attempt at a name for the Beat Generation) which became the title of a Kerouac novel.

poetry. in particular was a favorite subject of Ginsberg.

Ginsberg dedicates his most famous poem, , to ; Cassady and Solomon are specifically referenced throughout the poem. Other Beat Generation figures referenced in Howl include: Kerouac, Burroughs, , , and many more. He dedicated his first collection of poems, Howl and Other Poems, to Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady, and originally though his name was taken off later at Carr's request.

The dedication included all of their accomplishments including then unpublished , , and Cassady's . Carr requested his name be taken off because he didn't want the attention. He dedicated many of his other poetry collections and some individual to poems to other Beat figures, including: Huncke, Cassady, , , , and .

Many of them were also subjects of specific poems with in these collections.

Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Cassady collaborated on a poem called "Pull My Daisy." A section from "Pull My Daisy" was one of the first poems Ginsberg published.

When Kerouac and Ginsberg later collaborated on a film with photographer based on a script by Kerouac for a play called "The Beat Generation," they found that the title had already been copyrighted. They called the film " " instead. Kerouac did the narration; the actors included Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, and literary establishment, specifically poetry, of the 1950s and how it was changed in the 1960s.

Poetry in the 1950s was under the self and the focus on objectivity. Similar to this, and perhaps an even more pervasive influence, was the ideas of the and their idea of a poem as a perfectable object; specifically the poetry of and was highly influential at this time. Their focus on the formal aspects of poetry and their celebration of the short, ironic lyric led to a rise in formalist poetry and a preference for the short lyric.

When the Beat poets came to prominence in this time they were damned as sloppy libertines, and at best only a passing fad fueled by media attention.
This conflict was framed by two rival anthologies. Three champions of formalist poetry, , , and , were putting together an anthology of young poets called New Poets of England and America.

, believing at the time the Beat poets would be accepted by the literary establishment, brought Simpson, his old Columbia classmate, a packet of poetry including , of them. The introduction for the anthology was written by formalist hero . The here between conservative and avant-garde poetry.

The anthology also included poets associated with what is considered a movement parallel to the Beat Generation, The Angry Young Men, poets such as , , and . However, it did set a trend for who would become poets acceptable to academia and the literary establishment. For example, and would be seminal in the creation of what later became known as , which helped finally overturn the strict focus on objectivity (Lowell, according to some accounts, was inspired to as "Open Form" (his anthology) vs.

"Closed Form" (the other anthology). Though seeing it as a rivalry is overly simplistic (for example, many from New Poets of England and America were not strict formalists or have moved away from formalism), the development of poetry in the later half of the twentieth century is framed in these two anthologies.
These poets have had arguably equal impact on literature, and it can be said Beat literature has changed the establishment so that academia is more open to more radical forms of literature.

For example, of the poets listed in this section, ten from New American Literature. But Jack Kerouac, despite his impact on American culture and his status as an American icon, has never been included in Norton. Also, three poets from New Poets of England and America have served as Poets Laureate of the U.

S. No Beat poet has ever served as .
on April 2, 1958, likely as a play on the name of that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro- ".

The episode from his characteristically sardonic column, with ellipses intact, reads as follows: "...

Look magazine, preparing a picture spread on S.F.'s Beat Generation (oh, no, not AGAIN!

), hosted a party in a No. Beach house for 50 Beatniks, and by the time word got around the sour grapevine, over 250 bearded cats and kits were on hand, slopping up Mike Cowles' free booze. They're only Beat, y'know, when it comes to work.

..".

Caen's new term stuck and became the popular label playing while women wearing black leotards dance. Thousands of young people on college of them behaved in a manner very similar to that of the popular stereotype; indeed they comprised a cultural movement of sorts, apart from the literary beats, and often were proud to be called beatniks.
While many authors who can claim to be directly influenced by the beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had a huge influence on Western Culture more broadly.

In many ways, the Beats can be taken as the first subculture (here meaning a cultural subdivision on intellectual/artistic/lifestyle/political grounds, rather than on any obvious difference in ethnic or religious backgrounds). against.
West.

published in Friction, 1 (Winter 1982), revised for Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965:

Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation,

The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by , , and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.

The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by and , the notion of a "Fresh Planet."

Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and

Attention to what called (after ) a "second religiousness" developing within an advanced civilization.

Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.

Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road: "The Earth is an Indian thing."

me because I am poor." Some time during the 1960s, the rapidly expanding "beat" culture underwent a transformation: the "Beat Generation" gave way to This was in many respects a gradual transition.

Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement -- though equally notably, Kerouac did not remain active on the scene: he for example, in the case of who became a close friend of Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg as drug paranoia.
at 1403 Gough St.

Shortly after that Ginsberg connected with 's crowd who was doing LSD testing at Stanford, and Plymell was instrumental in his printing press a few years later then moved to Ginsberg's commune in Cherry Valley, NY in the early 1970s. (The Plymells never lived at the Farm, just visited there; although they remained in Cherry Valley.)
Cassady was the bus driver for one of the most important early Hippie groups, Ken Kesey's , which included several members of the .

A sign of Kerouac's break with this new direction in counterculture occurred when the , with Cassady's insistence, attempted to recruit Kerouac. Kerouac angrily rejected their invitation and accused them of attempting to destroy the American culture he celebrated.
after the 1967 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (where Allen Ginsberg, Gary Hippie culture: the protest at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and was friends with and other members of the " ".

There were certainly some stylistic differences between "beatniks" and "hippies" — somber colors, dark shades, and goatees gave way to colorful "psychedelic" clothing and long hair. The beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping a low profile) but In addition to the stylistic changes, there were some changes in substance: the beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. To quote Gary Snyder in a 1974

.

.. the next key point was Castro taking over Cuba.

The apolitical quality of Beat thought changed with that. It sparked revolutionary rhetoric. At the time of Castro's victory, it had to be rethought again.

Here was a revolution that had used violence and that was apparently a good thing. Many people abandoned the pacifist position at that time or at least began to give more thought to it. In any case, many people began to look to politics again as having possibilities.

From that follows, at least on some levels, the beginning of civil rights activism, which leads through our one whole chain of events: the Movement.

We had little confidence in our power to make any long range or significant changes. That was the 50s, you see.

It seemed that bleak. So that our choices seemed entirely personal existential lifetime choices that there was no guarantee that we would have any audience, or anybody would listen to us; but it was a moral decision, a moral poetic decision. Then Castro changed The original members or the Beat Generation group — in Allen Ginsberg's phrase, "the libertine circle" — used a number of different drugs.

In addition to the alcohol common in American life, they were also interested in , and, in some cases, opiates such as . As time went on, many of them began using other , such as , (also known as ), and .
drugs, and there were intellectual aspects to their interest in them as well as a simple pursuit of hedonistic intoxication.

Benzedrine at that time was available in the form of plastic inhalers, containing a piece of folded paper soaked in the drug. They would typically crack open the inhalers and drop the paper in coffee, or just wad it up and swallow it whole.
Opiates could be obtained in the form of morphine "syrettes": a squeeze tube with a hypodermic needle tip.

widespread. According to stereotype, the "hippies" commonly used the psychedelic drugs (marijuana, LSD), though the use of other drugs such as amphetamines was also widespread.
The actual results of this "experimentation" can be difficult to determine.

Claims that some of these drugs can enhance creativity, insight or productivity were quite common, as is the belief that the drugs in use were a key influence on the social intellectual undercurrent calling for spontaneity, an end to psychological repression; a romantic desire for a more chaotic, Dionysian existence.
The Beats were a manifestation of this undercurrent (and over time, a primary focus for those energies), but they were not the only one. Before Jack Kerouac embraced "spontaneous prose", there were other artists pursuing self-expression by abandoning control, notably the improvisational elements in jazz music.

The form of jazz championed by fact, the horn-rimmed glasses, goatee, and beret sported by the stereotypical beatnik was derived from the fashion of trumpeter control, often with the opposite intent of suppressing the ego, and avoiding self-expression; notably, the works of the operations" approach.
recommended putting cut up words in a bag and pulling them out randomly to create a poem. positive social intentions and its focus on revelations from the subconscious.

Both movements, in a sense, developed as a reaction to WWI, just as the Beat Generation was reacting to the environment of post-WWII America. introduced the work of Surrealist to Ginsberg. Artaud had a strong influence on many of the other Beats.

The poetry of was also a direct ways a vital movement in the 1950s, the Beats had interactions with many Surrealists and former Dadaists. Beat associates such as Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, and were responsible for translating a lot of the poetry from French and introducing it to English-speaking audiences. Several Beat associates, such as , were actual members of the Surrealist group; another example is who was close with Breton and was responsible for introducing a lot of Surrealist poetry to the other Beats.

The clearest influence of Surrealist poetry (the dream-like images, the seemingly random juxtaposition of dissociated images, for example), though this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in other poetry, Ginsberg's in particular. When in France the Beats met many Surrealists and former Dadaists. As the legend goes, when they met , Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie.

Many other other French writers still active in the 1950s had a tremendous impact on the writing of the Beat Generation, writers such as and . Older French writers rank high on the list of shared Beat influences: , for example. Beats also repeatedly invoke the spirit of Symbolists such as As for older poetic movements, perhaps the most important to the Beats was the .

Like the Beats, the Romantics emerged as a reaction to war ( ). And in many ways America of the 1950's saw a reemergence of the ideals the Romantics had fought against. If literature is seen simplistically as a fluctuation between Romantic and Enlightenment values, the Beat Generation would certainly side with the Romantics.

Specific Romantic writers had a heavy influence on Beats: , for example, worshipped as a hero. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's Adonais at self-defining auditory hallucination/revelation in 1948, and Ginsberg subsequently spent much of his life studying Blake. Blake and Ginsberg was about Blake (McClure saw him as a revolutionary; Ginsberg saw him as a prophet).

was also an influence on many of the Beats.
Of arguably equal importance to the British Romantics was what is often termed American Romanticism. Whether or not this term is accurate, many writers under this umbrella were important to the Beats: , , and especially .

is occasionally cited as an influence, as in the line from "who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kaballah..

." And, though the comparison might not seem obvious, Ginsberg even claimed was an influence on Beat poetry.
Burroughs.

to poets such as Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. Pound was instrumental in introducing ideas of and other Japanese and Chinese literary forms into Western literature. The Beats further adapted these ideas in their own work.

William Carlos Williams was an influence on most of the Beats with his encouragement to speak with an American voice instead of imitating the European poetic voice and European forms. He specifically influenced Snyder, Whalen, and Welch when he came to lecture at Reed College. More importantly he personally mentored many important Beat figures: Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, among others.

He published several of Ginsberg's letters to him in his epic poem Paterson and wrote an introduction to two of Ginsberg's books. And many of the Beats (Ginsberg of his poetry. Williams is occasionally classified as both an and an .

was also considered a member of the Objectivists. H.D.

( ), one of the key Imagists, was another important influence on the Beats. wrote a book-length study of her work. , another important modernist and a major influence on many of the Beats, was the subject epic/personal story in multiple volumes.

Other important Kerouac influences (and by extension Beat influences) include: subsequent influence of such Beat fans as , , , etc.). The image of the rebellious rock star is in many ways analogous to the Beat image of, say, Dean Moriarty in On the Road, a book that had a direct influence on many rock musicians.

Here are a few examples of their involvement in Rock and Roll and other forms of Pop Culture:

Supposedly, one reason the Beatles spell their name with an "a" is because was a fan of Keoruac. Ginsberg later met and became friends with members of the Beatles. Paul McCartney played guitar on

Ginsberg was close friends with and toured with him on the in 1975.

Dylan cites Ginsberg and Kerouac as major influences.

cites Kerouac as one of his biggest influences. He also studied poetry

, a major Beat fan and a prime example of a Beat character, wrote "Jack and Neal" about Kerouac and Cassady, and recorded "On the Road" (a song written by Kerouac after finishing the novel) with .

He also co-wrote The Black Rider with Burroughs.

Ginsberg has worked with . Burroughs worked with , , , etc.

of cites Burroughs as a major influence, and Burroughs appeared briefly in a U2 video. Similarly, featured Burroughs on her 1984 album and in her 1986 concert film, .

as two other spoken word/musical collaborations with other musicians.

In 1958, he published an article in the Partisan Review titled "The Know-Nothing Bohemians". As Russell Jacoby (in his book The Last Intellectuals) describes it, in this essay Podhoretz "defended

"There is a suppressed cry in those books [of Kerouac]: Kill the intellectuals who can talk coherently, kill the people who can sit still for five minutes at a time." "The Bohemianism of the 1950s" is "hostile to civilization; it worships primitivism, instinct, energy, 'blood.

'" For Podhoretz, "This is the revolt of the spiritually underprivileged."

Podhoretz thought he glimpsed a link between the beats and the delinquents, a common hatred of civilization and intelligence.
juvenile crime in the 1950s, but I also believe that juvenile crime can be explained partly in terms of the same resentment against normal feeling and the attempt to cope with the world through intelligence that lies behind Kerouac and Ginsberg.

" literature.":

The novel is not an imaginary situation of imaginary truths — it is an expression of what one feels. Podhoretz doesn't write prose, he doesn't know how to write prose, and he isn't interested in the technical problems of prose or poetry.

His criticism of bit about anti-intellectualism is a piece of vanity, we had the same education, went to the same school, you know there are 'Intellectuals' and there are intellectuals. Podhoretz is just out of touch with twentieth-century literature, he's writing for the eighteenth-century mind. We have a personal literature now-Proust, Wolfe, Faulkner, Joyce.

Kerouac was a casualty too. And there were many other casualties that most people have never heard of, but were genuine casualties. Just as, in the 60s, when Allen and I for a period there were almost publicly recommending people to take acid.

When I look back on that now I realize there were many casualties, responsibilities to bear.

"But yet, but yet, woe, woe unto those who think that the Beat Generation means crime, delinquency, immorality, amorality ..

. fact unto those who make evil movies about the Beat Generation where innocent housewives are raped by beatniks! .

.. woe unto those who spit on the Beat Generation, the wind’ll blow it back.

"

Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader.

Penguin Books. New York. 1992.

ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0 14

Morgan, Ted Literary Outlaw The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs (1983) ISBN 0-380-70882-5

Knight, Brenda. Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution.

ISBN

Charters, Ann. Ed. 1992.

The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8

Hrebeniak, Michael.

Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006.

Knight, Arthur Winfield. Ed.

The Beat Vision (1987) Paragon House.