...The Beats were a criticism of American complacency and an expression of new forms of literature that has constantly influenced our society and living. The Beat generation started from a group of American writers who emerged in the 1950s. Among many Beat Generation writers, most influential members were Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Gary Snyder. All the writers have contributed to the literature society in their own different and unique way. Here in this essay, I will explore on unique characteristics or contributions that each writer has made on our literature society. Norman Mailer was a predominant writer in 1950s. He is mostly known as the writer of “White Negro”. He contributed on our literature by clarifying who Beat Generations are and how do we define them. In his essay The White Negro, he defined the Beatnik as young white people who like Jazz and swing music so much that they adopted black culture as their own. Beatniks adopted the African American vernacular language to differentiate themselves from the so-called “Mainstream”. The word they use is semantically flexible that words such as man, beat, cool, swing, with it, crazy, dig, flip, creep and hip can mean hundreds different things depending upon context to tone and rhythm. By further defining and exploring the meaning of Beat Generation, he allowed others to see what beat generation is truly about. Without his essay “The White Negro”, people would have interpreted Beat Generation...
Words: 908 - Pages: 4
...[pic][pic] [pic]Copyright © 2005 West Chester University. All rights reserved. College Literature 32.2 (2005) 103-126 [pic] | |[pic][pic][pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Access provided by Northwestern University Library ...
Words: 36700 - Pages: 147
...Baber 10/23/12 Beat Literature practice college paper Through out the beat literature you can find recurring themes like religion that make the different stories/poems very similar. The beat generation rejects the American culture that covers up the disasters that are happening. They turned to Buddhism for peace. A big group of people called “the beats” went off the mainstream path and started doing things that were not typical to do during that time period. Some things that were not mainstream was the beats started to practice Buddhism and the way they write their stories and poem for example the style and run on sentences. The members of the Beat Generation rejected mainstream Western traditions because they felt those traditions were covering up what was wrong in 1950s America. Through out the different beat literatures there are many references where the beats reject Western traditions and went off the mainstream path. In the Note on Religious Tendencies by Gary Snyder that the Beat Generation do “experimentation with narcotics […] and intelligent use of drugs.” (Religious Tendencies) This demonstrates the Beats would rather not follow the mainstream path and would rather do different things like try different kinds of drugs and experiment with them. The Beats wanted to push themselves away from being with the mainstream people. They want to do different things even if they were not acceptable. Trying the different drugs showed that the Beats were doing something...
Words: 732 - Pages: 3
...The end of World War two brought upon conformity and a conservative mindset. The majority of young people's priorities were to marry, move to suburbs, and be financially successful. However, there was a young group of men who were strongly against the "American dream" that the rest of society was working for. These men were Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassidy. They were a group of "struggling writers, students, hustlers, and drug addicts" (Wikipedia.com) better known as the "beats", and the founding fathers of the beat generation. Jack Kerouac is often seen as the leading pioneer of the beats. Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell was a small town, and "out of the raw outline of the legend he made out of his life in Lowell is simple and uncomplicated" (Charters 23). Kerouac had wild and vivid fantasies of making his life a legend. "He was always adapting roles, always an outsider, a spectator peering into the window like a shadow" (Charters 29). Life in Lowell would be no material for a legend, but life in New York would be. It was in New York that Kerouac was introduced to William S. Burroughs. He would become the biggest influence on Jack's life at the time. Burroughs was a writer as well, but never considered himself one. He had interest in experimenting with criminal behavior, and often had contacts in the criminal "underground". However, His confidence and style awed Kerouac. Kerouac would leave New York and later return...
Words: 1013 - Pages: 5
...excitement of jazz to be particularly inspiring. Beat Generation in the 1950s marked the beginnings of a major cultural turning point in the United States. Jack Kerouac dominated the literature world with a new sense of adventure during the counterculture movement of the 1960s.No author described the connection between jazz and the beat movement better than Jack Kerouac. On...
Words: 1258 - Pages: 6
...While both Hipster from the Beat Generation and Hipsters today have a lot in common, the original hipsters accomplished, set grounds, and made a bigger name for themselves. Hipsters have been around for decades and have had the same goal, which is to relatively stand outside of the mainstream crowd. However, I believe the idea of being a hipster and knowing what it is to call oneself a hipster has been misconceived. Hipsters today do not really understand what it means to be different and a Hipster; rather, they are following suite instead of being different. Hipsters back then during the Beat Generation were frankly different. Ironically, they went according to their own “beat”. There weren’t any rules, from the way they dressed, how they...
Words: 991 - Pages: 4
...Good afternoon dear professors and dear colleagues! Today I have an opportunity to present to you the research, the designation of which is «Lexical analysis of the novel «On the road» written by Jack Kerouac». Trips, journeys, wanderings and youth are the main sources of inspiration for Jack Kerouac whose book has remained bestseller for more than 60 years. Buddhist, philosopher and travelling writer, not only wrote the book about hitchhiking, but also gave the name to the whole direction in literature and society, namely beat generation. Besides, the novel is characterized by autobiographical features since Jack Kerouac depicts the life of beat generation, the representor of which he was. From linguistic point of view, «On the road» is a unique example of spontaneous prose invented by Kerouac therefore it is an interesting material to research. Furthermore, little research has been undertaken to study the novel ‘On the Road’ as a linguistic phenomenon. The actuality of the theme of our research consists in research of the emotive prose as a linguistic prose, stylistic and lexical peculiarities of which are not investigated enough. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze lexical and stylistic items used in novel ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac. The tasks of our paper lie in description of stylistic characteristics of emotive prose, in detection and analysis of lexical and stylistic items in the novel. The object of the research is the novel ‘On the Road’ written...
Words: 922 - Pages: 4
...Howl In the post-World War II years, a cultural and literary movement began. A new generation of American writers, artists and thinkers reacted and expressed their ideas in obscene forms. They were called “The Beats” who were formed in the 1950’s by poets Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Howl by Allen Ginsberg illustrates America’s post-World War II culture and political issues through his journey and views. The use of metaphors, tone, and descriptive language draw parallels between the ideas of, conformity to institutions, sexual repression, and religion. According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Allen’s Ginsberg was a popular poet after World War II. He was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1926. Ginsberg attended college at Columbia...
Words: 1182 - Pages: 5
...The Beat Generation of the post-war 1950s is the Lost Generation of disillusioned rebellious young men looking for freedom and self-expression. It is a religious generation on a spiritual quest back and forth in the lands of America. A relatively small movement in terms of published literature, the Beatnik generation's literary sphere was dominated by three leading figures: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. The writings of these figures generally focused on the major themes of the generation itself, advocating a modern bohemian hedonism far exceeding that of any other movement of the 20th century.The most prominent and famous writer of this Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac, portrays his journeys through America in his autobiographical novel On the Road. In the book, Sal Paradise, the literary equivalent of Jack Kerouac, is a writer outsider in the search of a place under the sun. He is bored, disillusioned, and unhappy. Upon meeting his hero, Dean Moriarty, Paradise goes on a journey through the lands of America and Mexico, experimenting with drugs, sex, and alcohol, hitchhiking, stealing, sleeping under the sun, starving, yet engaging in exuberant and memorable experiences. Both friends rebel against the conformist American dream and go on the road to break with conventions and rules, with heightened expectations of what life should be and what life could actually offer. As they follow through their travels, the way they interact or exist in the different...
Words: 2379 - Pages: 10
...Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, is about the journey of a young college-age man across the country in search of something more from his life in post-war America. The book revolves around a young man named Sal Paradise, and the whole story is told from his perspective. The rambling writing, while hard to understand sometimes, offers a detailed record of his pursuit and the ensuing antics. The story starts in 1947 where Sal meets a man named Dean Moriarty, a lively and animated man who was a “sideburned hero of the snowy West” (Kerouac 2). It was Dean who prompted Sal’s adventurous travels west. Along the way, Dean and Sal befriend Carlo Marx, an energetic young poet who shares the same view of wanting something a little more out of life. Sal’s journeys across the U.S. and to Mexico open his eyes to the good and bad, the up and downs in life. His constant stints on the road with madman Dean sometimes got him in trouble with the law. Other times, the trips allowed Sal to truly find out more about himself, and relate to Dean on a more personal level to share and connect The meaning behind the title On the Road lies in Sal’s innate desire for something more. The road in this novel comes to symbolize freedom and the solution to answer life’s problems. Sal constantly finds a refreshing sense of purity once he hits the open road, especially in the company of Dean, whose spirit was the catalyst for the voyages in the first place. However, once Sal and Dean get to Mexico City...
Words: 1254 - Pages: 6
...United by Differences “I am an American.” No phrase has held so many meanings and explanations that it requires the context of the world to understand. America has come to be identified as a conglomeration of different ethnicities and cultures from across the world. Almost all Americans emigrated from another nation to form an encompassing society in this nation. America is comprised of a literal and metaphorical “melting pot” of immigrant cultures, customs, religions, and philosophies. Although our flag is not tied together by one culture or ethnicity, certain characteristics are truly woven into a person on this soil. An American is not defined by their religion, customs or place or origin, but by their drive for freedom, equality and the pursuit of the American Dream. Every American has been shaped by the plethora of different cultures that permeate through this unique society. While many other nations divide or separate through differences, Americans can be tied together by these very same disparities. A citizen can be English, Chinese, Polish, Italian, Greek; they can be Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish, or Islamic. No religion, no custom, no ethnicity can truly define every citizen of America because it “is every person’s country” (Crevecoeur 309). Yet, because of this great diversity, many Americans have an appreciation or understanding for the co-existence of lifestyles and beliefs. Since the founding of this country in Jamestown and the Pilgrims of Plymouth, immigrants...
Words: 1379 - Pages: 6
...The only brush with sanity in the viands episode is provided by the crazy burglar next door to Paul. Ever since their post-World War II emersion, the Beats have been considered as ideological icons. This essay will be discussing whether or not their highly autobiographical pieces of work actually successfully portray a realistic manifestation of these ideologies. This essay will be analysing the roles of three main aspects to their ideologies: money, sex and enlightenment. The role of money throughout all three pieces of work is highly complicated, as all of these Beats looked to dispense of it, seeking true meaning in life without the impending façade of money and materialism, neither caring for its necessity nor its potential. However, when...
Words: 1363 - Pages: 6
...A twist of Individuality Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl is one of the most widely read and translated poems of the century. The language incorporated in the poem is difficult to understand which requires readers to contemplate and think outside of the box. However despite the difficulty, Ginsberg gives the reader a deeper understanding of how he feels by expressing his individualism through the poem with tone and imagery. During the 1950’s, an American literary movement emerged known as the Beat Generation. The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University where Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and others initially met. These Beat poets who were referred to as “the best minds” in Howl, broke free from the habit of conformity...
Words: 1217 - Pages: 5
...A Howl in the Wind Allen Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets /writers during his time. He was considered as the founding father of the Beat Generation and was known for his poem, HOWL. In addition, Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey in the year 1926, suffering from an emotionally troubled life throughout his teenaged years because he’s been secluded when finally realizing his desirability towards men, while his father Louis is the one who introduced Ginsberg to poetry. Besides his father, Ginsberg had many literary influences such as, William Carlos Williams, Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren, etc. Nonetheless, later in the years, after remaining an “iconic figure” of the counterculture throughout the 1960 and 70s, he passed...
Words: 995 - Pages: 4
...Introduction 1. The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. 2. The word 'hippie' came from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into New York City's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. 3. The origins of the terms hip and hep are uncertain, though by the 1940s both had become part of African American jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". 4. The Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation. 5. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and some used drugs such as cannabis, LSD, and magic mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness. 6. Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. 7. Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by mainstream society. 8. The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a larger audience. 9. The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in myriad forms, including health food, music festivals, contemporary sexual mores, and even the cyberspace revolution. Origin 1. A July 1967 Time...
Words: 875 - Pages: 4
