The Beat Generation
The Beat Movement, more commonly known as the Beat Generation, was a group of American writers who came to prominence in the 1950s. Central elements of their writing included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, use of illegal drugs, alternative sexualities, religion, anti-materialism, and highly explicit portrayals of the human condition. Their statements were highly controversial and strongly offended the morality of Americans at the time.
The Impact of the Beats
The Beats were so successful because their works were remarkably peculiar. The Beat Movement changed things drastically because their works were so controversial; the controversy led to fame and inspired America to think differently about the world. Their works spurred people to fight against homophobia and for women's rights, ultimately leading to the Counter-Culture movement in the '60s, in which people actively protested for these causes and others.
Prominent Authors and Works
Some of the most prominent authors in the Beat Movement include Allen Ginsberg, William Seward Burroughs II, Jack Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes and Lucien Carr. The movement truly began at Columbia University; the four met there in the late 1940s and began writing explicit pieces that supported their ideas concerning drugs, sexuality, and anti-materialism. Carr introduced the three to each other; many argue that he was the soul founder of the movement.
After Columbia, Burroughs moved to Boston, so his career was separate from those of Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Carr. Despite not living in the heart of the movement, New York City, Burroughs was equally influential as his peers. |
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John Clellon Holmes introduced the term "Beat generation" in a 1952 essay in his novel titled "GO." The novel was the first to portray an underground world of drug-fuelled parties, bars, clubs and free love. In the novel, Hobbes is torn between joining his friends (including Ginsberg and Kerouac) in their fun and maintaining his stable life and marriage. "GO" was the first Beat novel ever written.
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Jack Kerouac was the first to truly define the word "beat" as it is used in the term "Beat generation." He suggested that "beat" meant
being socially marginalized and exhausted, or "beaten down." In addition, since many beats were homosexual or bisexual, he claimed the Beats were blessed with their differences, or in his words, "beatific." |
Lucien Carr developed what he called the “New Vision,” a thesis that helped provide a firm basis for the Beats. The thesis claimed three things:
1) Naked self-expression is the seed of creativity. 2) The artist's consciousness is expanded by derangement of the senses. 3) Art eludes conventional morality." This "New Vision" coupled with the values of the Beats inspired an array of Beatnik works. |
Allen Ginsberg wrote the collection "Howl and Other Poems," which was published in 1955. "Howl" was written graphically about multiple subjects including the horrors of WWII, homosexuality, drug abuse, the state of industrialization, and his emotional connection to fellow author, Carl Solomon, whom he befriended at a mental institution.
The significance of this work lies largely in it's effects; an obscenity trial occurred in 1957 on the basis that the work contains references to illicit drugs and sexual practices. The poem does contain graphic instances of these occurrences, from lines claiming: "[they] purgatoried their torsos...with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls" to lines reading: "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy." Despite this, nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf, and Judge Horn declared the work to be of "redeeming social importance, and was unlikely to "deprave or corrupt readers by exciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desire." "Howl" truly landed the first blow to obscenity laws, which liberalized publishing in America.
The significance of this work lies largely in it's effects; an obscenity trial occurred in 1957 on the basis that the work contains references to illicit drugs and sexual practices. The poem does contain graphic instances of these occurrences, from lines claiming: "[they] purgatoried their torsos...with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls" to lines reading: "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy." Despite this, nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf, and Judge Horn declared the work to be of "redeeming social importance, and was unlikely to "deprave or corrupt readers by exciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desire." "Howl" truly landed the first blow to obscenity laws, which liberalized publishing in America.
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William Seward Burroughs II was another primary figure within the Beat Movement. His most famous work, "Naked Lunch," was published in 1959. The title, he claimed, "means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." In reality, the novel lacks a plot and is a series of loosely connected accounts. Like Ginsberg, Burroughs describes, graphically, rather corrupt sexual acts and juxtaposes them with activities that one would usually confine to the bathroom. The book was written over a period of nine years, during which Burroughs traveled the globe attempting to feed his heroin addiction. “Junk,” the term he used to refer to the drug, is central to the novel; it inspired many of the work's graphic images, including a talking anus that murders it's host, a necrophilic death orgy, and a scene in which children watch men burn alive. "Naked Lunch" was perhaps more graphic than "Howl," and many people were still angry about Ginsberg's escape; in 1962, the book was banned for obscenity, and in 1965, an obscenity trial erupted against it. The Massachusetts Supreme Court reversed the decision; marking the dawn of a new age in which writers could publish freely.