Why is it called the Beat Generation?
To contemporary scholars the term “Beat Generation” refers to a group of post-World War II novelists and poets disenchanted with what they viewed to be an excessively repressive, materialistic, and conformist society, who sought spiritual regeneration through sensual experiences.
When did beat generation start?
The most basic answer is: The Beat Generation was a literary movement that began in the 1940s and entered the public consciousness in the 1950s. It was based around the social and creative circle of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. That answer is not perfect but it is a good starting point.
When was 'beat' first written?
First Written References. Above, I have established the origins of the word “Beat,” and traced its development and use from pre-1945 hepcat talk to late-fifties morphing into a pejorative term. But a written record only begins with Holmes’ 1952 article. Prior to that, it appears the history is an oral one.
What is the Beat Generation in literature?
In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation:
- Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, 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.
What started the Beat Generation?
The originally three that started the Beat Generation were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs who met each other at Columbia university 1948. In the Mid 1950s the Beat Generation expanded when the original three began to be associated with other writers in the San Francisco Renaissance.
In which period did Beat Generation emerge?
1950sThe Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s.
What ended the Beat Generation?
1966: The Naked Lunch ban is reversed But the reversal of the ban on Naked Lunch is also arguably the end of the Beat movement.
What did the beat generation stand for?
The most basic answer is: The Beat Generation was a literary movement that began in the 1940s and entered the public consciousness in the 1950s. It was based around the social and creative circle of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. That answer is not perfect but it is a good starting point.
When did the Beat Generation start and end?
Beat movement, also called Beat Generation, American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred in the bohemian artist communities of San Francisco's North Beach, Los Angeles' Venice West, and New York City's Greenwich Village.
Who were the first beat poets?
A national group of poets who emerged from San Francisco's literary counterculture in the 1950s. Its ranks included Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, and Gary Snyder.
What kind of music did beatniks listen to?
jazz musicThe Beats were very much influenced by jazz music and musicians. Kerouac would emulate bebop and cool jazz, and like other Beats, wanted his poetry and prose to have a similar musical language, rhythmic feeling and flow to what he heard in modern jazz. The Beats didn't want Dixieland.
What's the difference between a beatnik and a hippie?
The Beat Generation or “Beatniks,” as they were coined, were the intellectual genesis of the mid 1950s to early 1960s counterculture. Hippies were the romanticized mass media fueled movement of the late 1960s. Larger in size but stripped of much of its intellectual counterculture firepower.
What year were beatniks popular?
The Beatnik was a media stereotype prevalent from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation (the people born between 1928 and 1945) literary movement of the late 1940s and early to mid-1950s.
Why was the Beat Generation important?
The Beat Generation is known for its rejection of materialism and the standards of the day, experimentation with drugs, and spiritual and sexual liberation. It evolved in the 1960's to become part of the hippie and larger counterculture movements.
What is a Beatnik look?
Also commonly called a turtleneck, these shirts or sweaters are one of the most important components of Beatnik fashion. The style is all about being understated and elegant and a roll neck, with its folded-over soft neckline and slim fit, epitomizes that.
What are the characteristics of Beat Generation?
Beat Generation CharacteristicsSexual liberation and exploration.Portraying the human condition clearly.Experimentation with psychedelic drugs.Rejection of materialism.Exploring religion, Western and Eastern.Rejection of narrative.Non-conformity.Spontaneous creativity.
Why did the beat generation rise during the 1950s?
The American Beat Generation came into being in a special environment of the consumer societyafter World War II. The consumer society and the political pressure stimulated the Beat Generation's consciousness of anti- tradition and anti- modern civilization.
What was the Beat Generation quizlet?
The term Beat Generation was used to describe the rebellious literary movement that started in the 1940s, became famous in the 1950s, and ended in the 1960s. It started with a group of authors from the post-war era who broke standards and influenced American culture. Followers of this movement were called beatniks.
What year were the beatniks?
The Beatnik was a media stereotype prevalent throughout the late 1940s, 1950s to mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation (the people born between 1928 and 1945) literary movement of the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s.
What is a beatnik of the 1950s?
Definition of beatnik : a person who participated in a social movement of the 1950s and early 1960s which stressed artistic self-expression and the rejection of the mores of conventional society broadly : a usually young and artistic person who rejects the mores of conventional society.
What is the Beat Generation?
The most basic answer is: The Beat Generation was a literary movement that began in the 1940s and entered the public consciousness in the 1950s. It was based around the social and creative circle of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. That answer is not perfect but it is a good starting point.
When did the Beat movement start?
Some would say that it was a movement begun in the 1940s, popularized in the 1950s, and which morphed into the hippies of the 1960s. Others would say that the Beat flag still flies and that anyone writing confessional poetry in the 21st century is as Beat as Ginsberg.
What was Jack Kerouac's role in the Beat Generation?
Jack Kerouac was keen to steer the definition away from criminality and towards religiosity. As the unwilling spokesman of the Beat Generation in the late fifties, he found himself tasked with writing various articles about the Beats and answering questions from numerous journalists.
Who coined the term "beat"?
It was probably Herbert Huncke who first used the word “Beat” in the presence of Kerouac and co, and he used it to describe himself. He believed he was beat.
Who said "any attempt to label an entire generation is unrewarding"?
When John Clellon Holmes, in his 1952 essay on the Beat Generation, said “Any attempt to label an entire generation is unrewarding,” and he was quite right. It is absurd to label three men as a generation unto themselves.
Was the Beat Generation a literary movement?
That is to say, was the Beat Generation a purely literary movement, or a wider cultural phenomenon, or was it a social thing – in other words, the friends of these three writers? The most obvious answer is that the Beat Generation was simply a literary movement, with Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac at the center, ...
When did the Beat movement fade?
In between reads, try this novel idea: a quiz on all things literature. By about 1960, the Beat movement as a fad had begun to fade, though its experiments with form and its social engagement continued and had lasting effects.
Who inspired the Beat movement?
…gave powerful impetus to the Beat movement. Written with extraordinary intensity, these works were inspired by writers as diverse as Whitman, the biblical prophets , and English poets William Blake and Christopher Smart, as well as by the dream-logic of the French Surrealists and the spontaneous jazz aesthetic of Ginsberg’s friend…
What was the most representative poem of the Beat movement?
Allen Ginsberg ’s Howl became the most representative poetic expression of the Beat movement: the poem itself embodied the essence of the Beats’ voice; its first performance, in 1955, was a disorderly celebration; and the obscenity trial, in 1957, that followed its publication showed the movement’s social and political relevance.
What did Beat poets seek to do?
Beat poets sought to transform poetry into an expression of genuine lived experience. They read their work, sometimes to the accompaniment of progressive jazz, in such Beat strongholds as the Coexistence Bagel Shop and Lawrence Ferlinghetti ’s City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.
Plot
In the opening scene, a "beatnik" named Stan Hess ( Ray Danton) sits at a table in a coffee house with a woman who begs him for his affection. He scorns her, then encounters his father at another table, who announces his engagement to a younger woman who had also pursued Stan. He insults his stepmother-to-be and departs.
Box office
According to MGM records the film earned $400,000 in the US and Canada and $350,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $113,000.
What is the Beat Generation?
The Beat Generation is one of the defining movements of American poetry and one of the most important parts of the broader modernist movement. Its influence can be seen in the hippie movement of the following decades and the development of music, film, and visual arts.
Why did Kerouac use the word "beat"?
He used it as a way to allude to the perceptions of the group as underground and anti-conformist. The word “beat”, Kerouac said, was actually first used by Herbert Huncke and Kerouac appropriated it to mean “upbeat.”. The group also liked the association with music.
What is a vignette?
Vignette: a short scene within a larger narrative. They are found in novels, short stories, poems, and films. Novel: a long, written, fictional narrative that includes some amount of realism. Imagism: a literary movement of the early 20th century.
What were the influences of the drug era?
They were influenced by the work of poets like William Blake, in addition to the music of the period, specifically jazz, surrealism, and Zen poetry. Drugs also played a role in their understanding of their art, as did a broader disillusionment with literature in the post-World War II period.
Who is the Byronic hero?
The Byronic hero is a type of character inspired by the life and work of George Gordon, better known as Lord Byron.
What is Ginsberg's best thought?
Ginsberg used the following quote to describe their work: First thought, best thought. They were experimental with the construction of their poems, as well as their subject matter and how they approached it.
What did the Beat Generation do?
They favored personal freedom and expression in their lives and writing. As such, they rejected the Modernist approach to writing, with its formal structures and ways of composing written pieces, and instead embraced a free-form style more like that of Romantic writers. By rejecting modernist forms and structure, they hoped to make art more accessible to all people, not just the wealthy and well-educated.
Who coined the term "beat"?
Jack Kerouac--the first to call them 'beat,' as in 'feeling beat down,' he coined the term 'Beat Movement' and was by far one of their most famous members. Kerouac is known more for his books and style of prose than his poetry.
What was Beatnik culture in the 50s?
In the 50s and 60s, a Beatnik could be any young person who was forgoing the conventional dynamics of society in favor of a more radical lifestyle centered around art, intellectualism, and self-expression. Their willingness to challenge more traditional lifestyle choices, through the rejection of societal and behavioral norms, as well as a focus on the non-materialistic side of expression and individuality became signifiers of their culture.
Why did Beat Poetry come about?
Beat poetry came about as a response to anxieties of a post-WWII world and from the desire to do away with form and structure in art and literature so that the emotional honesty could be the focus .
What is beat poetry?
Beat Poetry was intentionally less formal than that of poetic movements that had come before. Where previous movements had followed certain rules and ideas regarding poetic structure, the Beat writers made poetry more personal, demanding less structured forms of writing that would allow for the free-flow of emotions, ideas, and individual beliefs. These writers were also influenced by jazz music and incorporated the spontaneity of the music into the release of their ideas. Due to the free and personal nature of the writing, the subjects and content of the work were much more controversial to the public than movements of the past.
Storyline
Soon after, we learn that Hess is a serial rapist at large in Los Angeles. His modus operandi is to gain entry to the home of a married woman whose husband is away by pretending to be there to repay money loaned by the husband. Once inside, he feigns a headache, pulls out a tin of aspirin, and asks the woman for water.
Did you know
"On the Road" author Jack Kerouac was disturbed that his friend, author John Clellon Holmes, managed to get his "Beat Generation" novel "Go" into print before his own was published ("Go", in which Kerouac is a main character, was published in 1952, while "On the Road" was not published until 1957).
Contribute to this page
By what name was The Beat Generation (1959) officially released in Canada in English?
What was the beat known for?
The beats were known for their care-free spirits, their knowledge, and their wicked cool parties.
How did the Beats achieve success?
Consequently, the Beats achieved fresh success by breaking down or improving a myriad of aspects in the fine arts; novels and poetry, art, and music. The Beats greatly enhanced poetic standards previously set by rousing poets.
What was Jack Kerouac's contribution to the Beat Generation?
Kerouac was a major contributor to the Beat Generation as well as American Literature in general. He was a single piece to a puzzle otherwise known as the Beats. The diverse group of writers, poets, artists, and musicians, commonly categorized as the Beatniks, provoked new beginnings in music, literature, and art. The Beats were a very influential group of people who inspired all aspects of fine arts as society knows them today; they modernized the old style of writing (Jack Kerouac’s 1959 novel On The Road ), broke the barriers placed on music, literature, and art (Bob Dylan & Patti Smith in the 1960s-70s), and opened numerous opportunities for aspiring artists, musicians, and writers. The Beat “Movement” was greatly influential in the history of the American arts, and the events that led up to the beginning of the movement were extremely imperative to the movement itself.
What did the Beats do to art?
The Beats broke barriers in art as well. Earlier works of art featured landscapes, classical portraits, and ordinary objects as they were in real life settings. Beat art was a bit more abstract and played around with different colors and styles according to skill.
What were the influences of the Beats?
Songs were focused about the same concept and sounded fundamentally, if not exactly, the same. The Beats were greatly influenced by jazz and the blues, music that was more realistic and believable. From then on, music started to become more original. Great American song writers like Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley wrote songs about corruption and unhappiness, showing society that concepts like unfaithfulness and depression did not have to be kept secret. On that same tier, artists were writing song with promiscuous content. Previously seen as unacceptable, promiscuity and sexuality were major themes that every beat explored, whether they were a musician, writer, artist, etc. Elvis is the perfect example of this. Just take a look at sexually charged songs like Spinout and Girls! Girls! Girls!
What did the Beats do for society?
The Beats, as a whole, did a great deal for modern society; they enhanced and restructured the current form of writing, broke down the restraints that were placed on music, literature, and art, and provided new opportunities for continuing generations. William S. Burroughs once suggested that one should, “strip [their] psyche to the bare bones of spontaneous process, give themselves one chance in a thousand to make the pass.” In essence, people should never second-guess themselves or underestimate the power of what they say. Who knows, anyone could be part of the next generation of great influence and knowledge.
What was the preceding beat movement?
Preceding the Beat “movement” was a war that shook the globe: World War II. The generation of children and young adults that were brought up from the 1920s and all the way through to the end of the war did not have anybody they could trust.
The Simple Answer – Who Were The Beats?
Was The Beat Generation A Literary, Cultural, Or Social Movement?
- Above, I referred to the Beat Generation as writers and this suggests that the Beat Generation was purely a literary movement. The name “Beat Generation” expands that beyond the three men to a wider group – perhaps even a whole generation of young people in the 1950s. This begs the question: Were all young people in the late fifties part of the Beat Generation, or did you have to …
What Is Beat?
- In 1945, young Kerouac and Ginsberg were heavily influenced bythe Romantics, and began debating something called “the New Vision”, inspired by William Butler Yeats’ A Vision. At the time, both Ginsberg and Kerouac were exploring new areas of literature and life, and began formulating some of the ideas that are now often associated with the Beat Generation. Ginsberg described t…
Could The Beat Generation Have Been Spiritual?
- Jack Kerouac was keen to steer the definition away from criminality and towards religiosity. As the unwilling spokesman of the Beat Generation in the late fifties, he found himself tasked with writing various articles about the Beats and answering questions from numerous journalists. In 1959 he was asked by the American College Dictionary editors to define “Beat Generation” and h…
Conclusion
- So what was the Beat Generation? Well, that depends on who you ask. Some would say that it was a movement begun in the 1940s, popularized in the 1950s, and which morphed into the hippies of the 1960s. Others would say that the Beat flag still flies and that anyone writing confessional poetry in the 21st century is as Beat as Ginsberg. I’ve heard pe...
Overview
The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Vampira, and Ray Anthony. It is a sensationalistic interpretation of the beatnik counterculture of the "Beat Generation" (and is sometimes considered one of the last films noir to be …
Plot
In the opening scene, a "beatnik" named Stan Hess (Ray Danton) sits at a table in a coffee house with a woman who begs him for his affection. He scorns her, then encounters his father at another table, who announces his engagement to a younger woman who had also pursued Stan. He insults his stepmother-to-be and departs. Hess is established as a woman-hating habitué of a stereotyped and sensationalized beatnik scene.
Cast
• Steve Cochran – Dave Culloran
• Mamie Van Doren – Georgia Altera
• Ray Danton – Stan Hess
• Fay Spain – Francee Culloran
Production
It was known during production as The Beat and the Naked Generation.
Richard Matheson, who had written The Incredible Shrinking Man for Zugsmith, said The Beat Generation was based on a true story "about a guy who would meet salesmen and talk to them on the road, learn all about their houses, where they were during the day, what they did; then he would go and attack the wives while the salesmen were still on the road. I wrote it as a police procedur…
Box office
According to MGM records the film earned $400,000 in the US and Canada and $350,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $113,000.
See also
• List of American films of 1959
External links
• The Beat Generation at IMDb
• The Beat Generation at Rotten Tomatoes