Beat generation

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The Beat Generation was a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their most important works are Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959).

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[edit] Meaning and usage

Kerouac introduced the phrase Beat Generation sometime around 1948 to describe his friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that time to the novelist John Clellon Holmes (who published an early novel about the beat generation, titled Go, in 1952, along with a manifesto of sorts in the New York Times Magazine: "This is the beat generation"). The adjective beat (introduced to the group by Herbert Huncke) had the connotations of "tired" or "down and out," but Kerouac added the paradoxical connotations of upbeat, beatific, and the musical association of being "on the beat."

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 Lost Generation.

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 Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder) persisted in various 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, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky. 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. William S. Burroughs, 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 San Francisco Renaissance and the Black Mountain poets would be completely separate movements.

If we define "Beat Generation" broadly (the way William Blake is defined as a Romantic poet) the definition would include other writers who reached prominence in the 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 Renaissance poets such as Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Harold Norse, Kirby Doyle; Michael McClure; surrealist poets Philip Lamantia and Ted Joans; poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan (though Duncan was one of the most vocal early critics of the "Beat Generation" label); New York School poets such as Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch; poets who are occasionally called the "second wave" of the Beat Generation such as LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Diane DiPrima, Anne Waldman; Bob Kaufman; Tuli Kupferberg; Ed Sanders; John Wieners; Jack Micheline; Ray Bremser and Bonnie Bremser/Brenda Frazer; Ed Dorn; Jack Spicer; David Meltzer; Richard Brautigan; Lenore Kendal; many previously underappreciated female writers who are now receiving more attention such as Joanne Kyger, Harriet Sohmers Zwerling, Janine Pommy Vega, Elise Cowen. And younger writers who were acquaintances of the aforementioned writers (such as Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, Jim Carroll, Ron Padgett) are occasionally included in this list. Charles Bukowski has a tenuous place on this list since his association is slight. Several older writers were very closely associated with members of the "Beat Generation" though their reputations were solidified so much earlier that it's difficult to call them part of the same "generation." They include Kenneth Rexroth the figure head of the San Francisco Renaissance, and Charles Olson figure head of the Black Mountain School of poetry. Also, so many of these writers either studied personally with William Carlos Williams or looked up to Williams as an 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 bohemian 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.

Allen Ginsberg, a Beat Generation writer
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Allen Ginsberg, a Beat Generation writer

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.

Echoes of the Beat Generation run throughout all the forms of alternative/counter culture that have existed since then (e.g. "hippies," "punks," etc). Also, since the "Beat Generation" had so much direct influence on rock musicians (the spelling of the name "Beatles" is a sign of this) they had a hand in fostering the image of the rebellious rock star. The Beat Generation can be seen as the first modern subculture and the first fully American literary movement since the Transcendentalists. See the "Influences on Western Culture" section below.

[edit] History

The members of the narrowly defined "Beat Generation" met in New York: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, (in the 1940s) and later (in 1950) Gregory Corso (hence why they were called the "New York Beats" though only Corso was from New York). Though endless travel around the country is part of their romanticized image, most of the central figures (excluding Burroughs) ended up together in San Francisco in the mid-1950s where they met and became friends with figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Harold Norse, Lew Welch, and Kirby Doyle. There they met many other poets who had migrated to San Francisco because it had a reputation as an important new center of creativity. This included Bob Kaufman who was the first to actually be called a "beatnik." Also of significance were Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Tuli Kupferberg, and members of the recently dissolved Black Mountain College looking for a new center of communal creativity, poets such as Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan.

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: John Wieners, LeRoi Jones, Diane DiPrima, Anne Waldman. The New York School of poets, (including Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler, 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 environment and provided the writers with much of their subject material: There was Herbert Huncke, a drug addict and petty thief met by Burroughs in 1946 who introduced the word "beat" and a lot more junky lingo and the junky lifestyle; Lucien Carr who was key to introducing many of the central figures to one another; and Hal Chase, an anthropologist from Denver who in 1947 introduced into the group Neal Cassady, the hero and symbol of the American dream idolized in much Beat literature.

Also important were the oft-neglected women in the original circle, including Joan Vollmer and Edie Parker. 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.

[edit] Columbia University and The Kammerer Stabbing

The original circle met at Columbia University; though they were later considered anti-academic artists, the seed for the Beat Generation was planted in a highly academic environment. For example, many of their early ideas were formed by arguments with professors such as Lionel Trilling and Mark VanDoran. It was the same environment in which classmates such as Louis Simpson and Donald Hall became champions of formalism. This is where Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from Arthur Rimbaud) 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 Duluoz.

Burroughs was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1914; making him roughly ten years older than most of the other original beats. While still living in St. Louis, Burroughs met David Kammerer, presumably an association based on their shared homosexual orientation and intellectual tendencies.

As a boys' youth-group leader in the mid-1930s, David Kammerer became infatuated with the young Lucien Carr (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 Millions", which didn't actually exist).

The three became good friends, whose sprees got Burroughs kicked out of his rooming house and culminated in Carr confined in a mental ward after an apparent attempted suicide with a gas oven (one version of the story holds that this was a way of avoiding military service).

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 an altercation in a park on the Hudson river.

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.

[edit] The Times Square Underworld

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 opiates. Burroughs met Herbert Huncke, a small-time criminal and drug addict who often hung around the Times Square 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.

Various troubles arose from this association: In 1949 Ginsberg was in trouble with the law (his apartment was packed with stolen goods, he had been riding in a car full of stolen goods, and so on). He pleaded insanity and was briefly committed to Bellevue, where he met Carl Solomon. When committed Carl Solomon was more eccentric than psychotic — a fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in some self-consciously "crazy" behavior, e.g. throwing potato salad at a lecturer on Dadaism. 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 insulin shock treatments 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 publishing contact that agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel Junky (1953) shortly before another episode resulted in him being committed again.

[edit] Neal Cassady

The introduction of Neal Cassady into the scene in 1947 had a number of effects. A number of the beats were enthralled with Cassady — Ginsberg had an affair with him; and Kerouac's road trips with him in the late 40s became a focus of his second novel, On the Road. Cassady is one of the sources of "rapping" - the loose spontaneous babble that later became associated with "beatniks" (see below). He was not much of a writer himself, though the core writers of the group were impressed with the free-flowing style of some of his letters, and Kerouac cited this as a key influence on his invention of the spontaneous prose style/technique that he used in his key works (the other obvious influence being the improvised solos of Jazz music). 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.

The time lags involved in the publication of Kerouac's On the Road often creates confusion: It was written in 1952 — shortly after John Clellon Holmes published "Go", and the article "This is the beat generation" — and it covered events that took 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 dictum was that "the first thought is best thought", and insisted that you should never revise text after it is written — though 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.

[edit] Gregory Corso

In 1950 Gregory Corso met Ginsberg, who was impressed by the poetry Corso had written while incarcerated for burglary. Gregory Corso was the young d'Artagnan 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.

[edit] San Francisco

See also: San Francisco Renaissance

Some time later there was much cross-pollination with San Francisco area writers (Ginsberg, Corso, Cassady and Kerouac each moved there for a time). Ferlinghetti (one of the partners who ran the City Lights Bookstore and press) became a focus of the scene as well as the older poet Rexroth, whose apartment became a Friday night literary salon. Ginsberg was introduced to Rexroth by an introductory letter from his mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth's. When Ginsberg organized the famous Six Gallery reading in 1955, he had Rexroth MC; in a sense Rexroth was bridging two generations. This was the first public appearance of Ginsberg's poem Howl and is considered one of the most important moments in the Beat Generation: it brought East Coast and West Coast poets together; the reading itself quickly sparked a legend and led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six 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.

An account of the Six Gallery reading forms the second chapter of Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, a novel about another poet that read at the event: Gary Snyder (written about under the name of "Japhy Ryder"). Most of the people in the Beat movement had urban backgrounds and they found Snyder to be an almost exotic individual, with his backcountry and rural experience, and his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has referred to him as 'the Thoreau of the Beat Generation". One of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums is Buddhism, and the different attitudes that Kerouac and Snyder have towards it. The Dharma Bums undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West.

[edit] Women of the Beat Generation

There is typically very little mention of women in a history of the early Beat Generation, and a strong argument can be made that this omission is largely a reflection of the sexism of the time rather than a reflection of the actual state of affairs.

Joan Vollmer (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 Neal Cassady, 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[citation needed], ranging from murder to "assisted suicide".)

Joan is mentioned in 'On the Road', in the chapters regarding the Kerouac and Cassady's visits to see 'Old Bull Lee' (Bill Burroughs) in New Orleans, and is pseudonymed as 'Jane'. She is described paradoxically as a distant woman who was 'never more than 10 feet away from Old Bull' at any given time, giving the impression that she is complex and difficult to get to know.

Gregory Corso 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 Li Po and was in fact their original teacher regarding eastern religion (this claim must be an 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 electroshock). This is confirmed by Diane di Prima (in a 1978 interview collected in The Beat Vision):

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 Barbara Moraff 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 her parents putting her in a shock treatment place in Pennsylvania ...

However, a number of female beats have persevered, notably Joyce Johnson (author of Minor Characters); Carolyn Cassady (author of Off the Road); Hettie Jones (author of How I Became Hettie Jones); Joanne Kyger (author of As Ever; Going On; Just Space); Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; and the aforementioned Diane di Prima (author of This Kind of Bird Flies Backward, Memoirs of a Beatnik). Later, other women writers emerged who were strongly influenced by the beats, such as Janine Pommy Vega (published by City Lights) in the 1960s, and Patti Smith in the early 1970s.

[edit] 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.

  • Allen Ginsberg was a tireless promoter of the works of other members of the Beat Generation. He considered himself a pro bono literary agent for all of his friends and for those with similar ideas. For example, he was instrumental in getting William S. Burroughs' first book (Junkie) 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, The Yage Letters.
  • Jack Kerouac references many important Beat figures in his novel. Two of his most important novels (On the Road and Dharma Bums) feature Neal Cassady and Gary Snyder 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. Ginsberg gives Kerouac credit for the name "Howl" though the original manuscript Ginsberg sent 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 "Naked Lunch" -- 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.
  • Members of the Beat Generation provided subject matter for much of Allen Ginsberg's poetry. Neal Cassady in particular was a favorite subject of Ginsberg. Ginsberg dedicates his most famous poem, Howl, to Carl Solomon; Cassady and Solomon are specifically referenced throughout the poem. Other Beat Generation figures referenced in Howl include: Kerouac, Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, Tuli Kupferberg, and many more. He dedicated his first collection of poems, Howl and Other Poems, to Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady, and originally Lucien Carr though his name was taken off later at Carr's request. The dedication included all of their accomplishments including then unpublished On the Road, Naked Lunch, and Cassady's The First Third. 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, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Frank O'Hara. 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 Robert Frank 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 "Pull My Daisy" instead. Kerouac did the narration; the actors included Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, and Larry Rivers (a painter associated with the New York School).
  • Gary Snyder dedicated several poems to Lew Welch and has referenced other Beat figures, such as Kerouac, in his poetry.
  • Frank O'Hara in his conversational poems often talks about eating lunch with "LeRoi" (LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka) and often references other Beat writers such as Ginsberg and John Wieners.
  • LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka occasionally references other Beats in his writing (Snyder and Kerouac, for example). Baraka and Diane DiPrima edited a magazine called Yugen which published many of the Beat writers.

[edit] Open Form vs. Closed Form Poetry

One way to understand why the Beat Generation was considered radical and a good way to measure their impact is to look at the literary establishment, specifically poetry, of the 1950s and how it was changed in the 1960s. Poetry in the 1950s was under the heavy influence of T. S. Eliot's often misinterpreted idea of poetry being an escape from self and the Modernist focus on objectivity. Similar to this, and perhaps an even more pervasive influence, was the ideas of the New Critics and their idea of a poem as a perfectable object; specifically the poetry of John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren 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, Louis Simpson, Donald Hall, and Robert Pack, were putting together an anthology of young poets called New Poets of England and America. Allen Ginsberg, 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 Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Robert Creeley, Philip Lamantia, Denise Levertov, Michael McClure, and Charles Olsen in hopes that they would be included in this new anthology (Ginsberg was a relentless promoter of the work of his friends and the work of those he admired). Simpson rejected all of them. The introduction for the anthology was written by formalist hero Robert Frost. The anthology included poetry by Robert Bly, Donald Justice, James Merrill, W. S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, Adrienne Rich, Richard Wilbur, and James Wright. There is not a strict demarcation 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 Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, and Thom Gunn. However, it did set a trend for who would become poets acceptable to academia and the literary establishment. For example, Robert Lowell and W. D. Snodgrass would be seminal in the creation of what later became known as Confessional poetry, which helped finally overturn the strict focus on objectivity (Lowell, according to some accounts, was inspired to write more personal poetry by Ginsberg and the Beats).

Donald Allen of Grove Press accepted many of the manuscripts Ginsberg gave him for his rival anthology The New American Poets: 1945-1960. Poets in that anthology included John Ashbery, Paul Blackburn, Ray Bremser, Gregory Corso, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Kirby Doyle, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Koch, Philip Lamantia, Denise Levertov, Michael McClure, Frank O'Hara, Charles Olson, Joel Oppenheimer, Peter Orlovsky, James Schuyler, Gary Snyder, Jack Spicer, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, John Wieners, and Jonathan Williams. Don Allen framed the debate 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 Poets of England and America and nine from The New American Poetry have been included in the Norton Anthology of 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 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

[edit] The Beatnik stereotype

Main article: Beatnik

The term Beatnik was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, likely as a play on the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik. Caen's coining of this term appeared to suggest that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist". 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 associated with a new stereotype of men with goatees and berets playing bongos while women wearing black leotards dance. Thousands of young people on college campuses and even in high schools came to regard themselves as beats or beatniks in the late 1950s and very early 1960s and many 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.

[edit] Influences on Western culture

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). During the very conformist post-World War II era they were one of the forces engaged in a questioning of traditional values which produced a break with the mainstream culture that to this day people react to -- or against.

There's no question that Beats produced a great deal of interest in lifestyle experimentation (notably in regards to sex and drugs); and they had a large intellectual effect in encouraging the questioning of authority (a force behind the anti-war movement); and many of them were very active in popularizing interest in Zen Buddhism in the West.

A quotation from Allen Ginsberg's A Definition of the Beat Generation as published in Friction, 1 (Winter 1982), revised for Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965:

Ginsberg has characterized some of the essential effects of Beat Generation artistic movement in the following terms:

  • Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
  • Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.
  • The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.
  • Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.
  • Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) 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."
The essence of the phrase "beat generation" may be found in On the Road with the celebrated phrase: "Everything belongs to me because I am poor."

[edit] Transition to the "Hippie" era

Some time during the 1960s, the rapidly expanding "beat" culture underwent a transformation: the "Beat Generation" gave way to "The Sixties Counterculture", which was accompanied by a shift in public terminology from "Beatnik" to "hippie".

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 broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 60s protest movements as "new excuses for spitefulness".

The Beats in general were a large influence on members of the new "counterculture", for example, in the case of Bob Dylan who became a close friend of Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg as early as 1960 became close friends with 60's icon Timothy Leary and helped him in distributing LSD to influential people (including Robert Lowell) in order to demystify drug paranoia.

The year 1963 found Ginsberg living in San Francisco with Neal Cassady and Charles Plymell at 1403 Gough St. Shortly after that Ginsberg connected with Ken Kesey's crowd who was doing LSD testing at Stanford, and Plymell was instrumental in publishing the first issue of R. Crumb's Zap Comix on 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 Merry Pranksters, which included several members of the Grateful Dead. A sign of Kerouac's break with this new direction in counterculture occurred when the Merry Pranksters, 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.

According to Ed Sanders the change in the public label from "beatnik" to "hippie" happened after the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (where Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure were leading the crowd in chanting "Om"). Ginsberg was also present at another important event in Hippie culture: the protest at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and was friends with Abbie Hoffman and other members of the "Chicago Seven".

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 the hippies became known for "being cool" (displaying their individuality).

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 interview (collected in The Beat Vision):

... the next key point was Castro taking over Cuba. The apolitical quality of Beat thought changed with that. It sparked quite a discussion and quite a dialogue; many people had been basic pacifists with considerable disillusion with Marxian 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 things, then Martin Luther King changed things ...

[edit] Drug usage

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 marijuana, benzedrine and, in some cases, opiates such as morphine. As time went on, many of them began using other psychedelic drugs, such as peyote, yage (also known as Ayahuasca), and LSD.

Much of this usage can fairly be termed "experimental", in that they were generally unfamiliar with the effects of these 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.

As the Beat phenomenon spread (transforming from Beat to "beatnik" to "hippie"), usage of some of these drugs also became more 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 events of the time (see recreational drug use).

[edit] Historical context

The postwar era was a time where the dominant culture was desperate for a reassuring planned order; but there was a strong 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 bop form of jazz championed by Charlie Parker and others was one of the biggest influences on many of the Beats; in fact, the horn-rimmed glasses, goatee, and beret sported by the stereotypical beatnik was derived from the fashion of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

Close analogies to the writings of the Beats can be found in the action paintings of Jackson Pollock and the work of other Abstract Expressionists such as Willem DeKooning and Franz Kline. It's not surprising that members of the New York School of Abstract Expressonism were friends with many members of the Beat Generation; they were so closely tied with parallel movements such as the New York School of poetry and the Black Mountain school.

Black Mountain was associated with many other artists in the post-war period who embraced a similar disdain for refined control, often with the opposite intent of suppressing the ego, and avoiding self-expression; notably, the works of the composer/writer John Cage and the paintings and "assemblages" of Robert Rauschenberg. The "cut-up" technique that Brion Gysin developed and that William Burroughs adopted after publishing Naked Lunch bears a strong resemblance to Cage's "chance operations" approach.

The "cut-up" method may have its origins many years earlier in the poetry of Dadaist/Surrealist Tristan Tzara who recommended putting cut up words in a bag and pulling them out randomly to create a poem. Dadaism and Surrealism arguably had the most direct impact on the Beats: Dadaism with its attack on the elitism of high culture and its celebration of spontaneity; Surrealism with its transformation of the Dadaist rebellion into 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. Carl Solomon introduced the work of Surrealist Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg. Artaud had a strong influence on many of the other Beats. The poetry of Andre Breton was also a direct influence (see for example Ginsberg's Kaddish). Since Surrealism was still in many ways a vital movement in the 1950s, the Beats had interactions with many Surrealists and former Dadaists. Beat associates such as Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, and Ron Padgett were responsible for translating a lot of the poetry from French and introducing it to English-speaking audiences. Several Beat associates, such as Ted Joans, were actual members of the Surrealist group; another example is Philip Lamantia who was close with Breton and was responsible for introducing a lot of Surrealist poetry to the other Beats. The poetry of Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman show 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 Marcel Duchamp, 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 Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Jean Genet. Older French writers rank high on the list of shared Beat influences: Apollinaire, for example. Beats also repeatedly invoke the spirit of Symbolists such as Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.

As for older poetic movements, perhaps the most important to the Beats was the Romantic movement. Like the Beats, the Romantics emerged as a reaction to war (The French Revolution). And in many ways America of the 1950's saw a reemergence of the Enlightenment 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: Gregory Corso, for example, worshipped Percy Shelley as a hero. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's Adonais at the beginning of Kaddish, and he cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure compared Ginsberg's Howl to Shelley's breaktrhough poem Queen Mab. Ginsberg's most important Romantic influence was Blake, who was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination/revelation in 1948, and Ginsberg subsequently spent much of his life studying Blake. Blake was also a major influence on Michael McClure. The first conversation between McClure and Ginsberg was about Blake (McClure saw him as a revolutionary; Ginsberg saw him as a prophet). John Keats 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: Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman. Edgar Allan Poe is occasionally cited as an influence, as in the line from Howl "who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kaballah..." And, though the comparison might not seem obvious, Ginsberg even claimed Emily Dickinson was an influence on Beat poetry.

The novel You Can't Win by Jack Black had a strong influence on Burroughs.

Though in ways the Beats were reacting against the tendency toward objective distancing and the focus on craft brought on by literary Modernism, (hence why the Beats are sometimes considered Postmodern) many modernist writers were major influences on the Beats: Marcel Proust,Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and H.D.. Pound was specifically important to poets such as Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. Pound was instrumental in introducing ideas of haiku 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 specifically) helped promote Williams' poetry and his play Many Loves. Ferlinghetti's City Lights even published a volume of his poetry. Williams is occasionally classified as both an Imagist and an Objectivist. Kenneth Rexroth was also considered a member of the Objectivists. H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), one of the key Imagists, was another important influence on the Beats. Robert Duncan wrote a book-length study of her work. Gertrude Stein, another important modernist and a major influence on many of the Beats, was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch. Marcel Proust, specifically in his Remembrance of Things Past, had an influence on Kerouac's Duluoz Legend concept: a single epic/personal story in multiple volumes. Other important Kerouac influences (and by extension Beat influences) include: Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.

[edit] Rock and Roll Connections

Perhaps even greater than their influence on literature is the influence the Beats had on Rock and Roll, if one considers the subsequent influence of Beat fans like the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. 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 John Lennon was a fan of Keoruac. Ginsberg later met and became friends with members of the Beatles. Paul McCartney played guitar on Ginsberg's album Ballad of the Skeletons.
  • Ginsberg was close friends with Bob Dylan and toured with him on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975. Dylan cites Ginsberg and Kerouac as major influences.
  • Tom Waits, 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 Primus. He also co-wrote The Black Rider with Burroughs.
  • Burroughs did an album called The Priest They Called Him with Kurt Cobain as well as two other spoken word/musical collaborations with other musicians.
  • In the late 1950s, voice actor Bob McFadden collaborated with Rod McKuen on a single entitled "The Beat Generation" which poked fun at the movement.

[edit] Criticism

One prominent critic of the Beats was Norman Podhoretz. He was a student at Columbia who knew Ginsberg and Kerouac (some of his student poetry was published by Allen Ginsberg before their falling-out). Later Podhoretz became editor of the neo-conservative publication Commentary.

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 civilization against the barbarians":

"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.

"I happen to believe that there is a direct connection between the flabbiness of American middle-class life and the spread of 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."

Another quotation from "The Know-Nothing Bohemians":

"Being against what the Beat Generation stands for has to do with denying that incoherence is superior to precision; that ignorance is superior to knowledge; that the exercise of mind and discrimination is a form of death ..."

Ginsberg responded in a 1958 interview with The Village Voice (collected in Spontaneous Mind), specifically addressing the charge that the Beats destroyed "the distinction between life and 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 Jack's spontaneous bop prosody shows that he can't tell the difference between words as rhythm and words as in diction ... The 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.

Gary Snyder in a 1974 interview (collected in The Beat Vision), comments on the subject of "casualties" of the Beat Generation:

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.

[edit] Quotes

"The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked."
- Amiri Baraka
"sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the lost generation's subsequent existentialism, I said 'You know John, this is really a beat generation', he lept up and said 'That's it! That's right!'"
- Jack Kerouac
"But yet, but yet, woe, woe unto those who think that the Beat Generation means crime, delinquency, immorality, amorality ... woe unto those who attack it on the grounds that they simply don’t understand history and the yearning of human souls ... woe in 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."
- Jack Kerouac
"Three writers does not a generation make."
- Gregory Corso
"Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose."
- Allen Ginsberg (quoted in Great Poets Howl: A Study of Allen Ginsberg's Poetry, 1943-1955 ISBN 3-8204-7761-6)
"Once when Kerouac was high on psychedelics with Timothy Leary, he looked out the window and said, 'Walking on water wasn't built in a day.' Our goal was to save the planet and alter human consciousness. That will take a long time, if it happens at all."
- Allen Ginsberg

[edit] See also

Western Generations
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Term Period
Awakening Generation 1701–1723
First Great Awakening 1727–1746
Liberty Generation
Republican Generation
Compromise Generation		 1724–1741
1742–1766
1767–1791
Second Great Awakening 1790–1844
Transcendentalist Generation
Transcendental Generation
Abolitionist Generation
Gilded Generation
Progressive Generation		 1789–1819
1792–1821
1819–1842
1822–1842
1843–1859
Third Great Awakening 1886–1908
Missionary Generation
Lost Generation
Interbellum Generation
G.I. Generation
Greatest Generation		 1860–1882
1883–1900
1900–1910
1900–1924
1911–1924
Jazz Age 1929–1956
Silent Generation
Baby Boomers
Beat Generation
Generation Jones		 1925–1945
1946–1964
1948–1962
1954–1962
Consciousness Revolution 1964–1984
Baby Busters
Generation X
MTV Generation
 1958–1968
1963–1978
1975–1985
Culture Wars 1980s–present
Boomerang Generation
Generation Y
Internet Generation
New Silent Generation		 1977–1986
1979–1999
1988–1999
2000–2020

[edit] References

[edit] Print

  • Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0 14 01.5102 8 (pbk)
  • 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 1-57324-138-5
  • Charters, Ann. Ed. 1992. The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk).
  • 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. ISBN 0-913729-40-X; ISBN 0-913729-41-8 (pbk)
  • Beat Culture and the New America 1950-1965 published by the Whitney Museum of American Art in accordance with an exhibition in 1995/1996 -- ISBN 0-87427-098-7 softcover, ISBN 2-08-013613-5 hardcover (Flammarion)
  • Sanders, Ed Tales of Beatnik Glory (second edition, 1990) ISBN 0-8065-1172-9
  • Jack's Book An Oral Biography Of Jack Kerouac* by Barry Gifford & Lawrence Lee (1978)

[edit] Film

  • Jack Kerouac (wrote), Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie (directed) Pull My Daisy (1958)
  • Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams (directed) Whatever Happened To Kerouac? (1986) Documentary.
  • Chuck Workman (wrote and directed) The Source (1999)
  • Gary Walkow (wrote and directed) Beat (2000)

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Greatest Generation
c. 1911 – c. 1924		 Beat Generation
c. 1948 – c. 1962		 Succeeded by
Generation Jones / Baby Busters
c. 1954 – c. 1965 / c. 1958 – c. 1968
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/e/a/Beat_generation.html"