Beat movement

The Beat Generation was a literary subculture 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, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

Allen Ginsberg's '' Howl'' (1956), William S. Burroughs' '' Naked Lunch'' (1959), and Jack Kerouac's '' On the Road'' (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.Charters (1992) ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Both ''Howl'' and ''Naked Lunch'' were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States.Ann Charters, ''introduction'', to ''Beat Down to Your Soul'', Penguin Books (2001) p. xix " ..the conclusion of the obscenity trial in San Francisco against Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Ginsberg's ''Howl and Other Poems'' ..in which Judge Clayton W. Horn concluded for the defendant that 'Howl' had what he called 'redeeming social content.'", p. xxxiii "After the successful ''Howl'' trial, outspoken and subversive literary magazines sprung up like wild mushrooms throughout the United States."Ted Morgan, ''Literary Outlaw'', New York: Avon, 1988. p. 347, trade paper edition : "The ruling on ''Naked Lunch'' in effect marked the end of literary censorship in the United States." The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.

The core group of Beat Generation authors— Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures, with the exception of Burroughs and Carr, ended up together in San Francisco, where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.

In the 1950s, a Beatnik subculture formed around the literary movement, although this was often viewed critically by major authors of the Beat movement. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus '' Furthur'', was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture, in which he actively participated. The hippie culture was practiced primarily by older members of the following generation.

Origin of name

Although Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York, fellow poet Herbert Huncke is credited with first using the word "beat". The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes. Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within the African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks", but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the ''Beat Generation'' poem.

Significant places

Columbia University

The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and the meeting of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Carr, Hal Chase and others. Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship. Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic, many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from W. B. Yeats), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals.

Times Square "underworld"

Ginsberg was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to stop Ginsberg while he was driving with Huncke, his car filled with stolen items that Huncke planned to fence. Ginsberg crashed the car while trying to flee and escaped on foot, but left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead insanity to avoid a jail term, and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital, where he met Carl Solomon.

Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism. Solomon was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel, ''Junkie'', in 1953.

Greenwich Village

Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low rent and the "small town" element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in Washington Square Park. Allen Ginsberg was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs, who lived at 69 Bedford Street.Beard and Berlowitz. 1993. ''Greenwich Village''. "The Beat Generation in the Village." 165–198.

Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars in the area, including the San Remo Cafe at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleecker, Chumley's, and Minetta Tavern. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and other abstract expressionists were also frequent visitors of and collaborators with the Beats. Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s.

In 1960, a presidential election year, the Beats formed a political party, the "Beat Party," and held a mock nominating convention to announce a presidential candidate: the African-American street poet Big Brown, won a majority of votes on the first ballot but fell short of the eventual nomination. The Associated Press reported, "Big Brown's lead startled the convention. Big, as the husky African American is called by his friends, wasn't the favorite son of any delegation, but he had one tactic that apparently earned him votes. In a chatterbox convention, only once did he speak at length, and that was to read his poetry."

San Francisco and the Six Gallery reading

Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at the end of 1954 and began writing ''Howl''. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, of the new City Lights Bookstore, started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in 1955.

Kenneth Rexroth's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.

Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of ''Howl''. It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.

It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement, since the 1956 publication of ''Howl'' (''City Lights Pocket Poets'', no. 4) and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention.

The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel '' The Dharma Bums,'' whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who is actually based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for a number of years. In the spring of 1955 they lived together in Snyder's cabin in Mill Valley, California. Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation."

As documented in the conclusion of ''The Dharma Bums'', Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure in order to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism. He would spend most of the next 10 years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of ''The Dharma Bums'', and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books.

Pacific Northwest

The Beats also spent time in the Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in ''The Dharma Bums'' and ''On the Road''.

Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956. Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds.

Significant figures

Burroughs was introduced to the group by David Kammerer. Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944.

On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed later was self-defense. He waited, then dumped the body in the Hudson River, later seeking advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of the weapon.

Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither were prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his own works: once in his first novel, '' The Town and the City'', and again in one of his last, '' Vanity of Duluoz''. He wrote a collaboration novel with Burroughs, ''And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks'', concerning the murder.

Participants

Women

Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson; Carolyn Cassady; Hettie Jones; Joanne Kyger; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; Diane DiPrima; and Ruth Weiss, who also made films. Carolyn Cassady wrote her own detailed account about life with husband Neal Cassady which also included details about her affair with Jack Kerouac. She titled it ''Off the Road'', and it was published in 1990. Poet Elise Cowen took her own life in 1963. Poet Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism. Later, female poets emerged who claimed to be strongly influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s.

African Americans

Although African Americans were not widely represented in the Beat Generation, the presence of some black writers in this movement did contribute to the movement's progression. While many of the Beats briefly discussed issues of race and sexuality, they spoke from their own perspectives—most being white. However, black people added a counterbalance to this; their work supplied readers with alternative views of occurrences in the world. Beats like the poet Robert "Bob" Kaufman and the writer LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) provide through their work distinctly Black perspectives on the movement. Kaufman wrote about a number of his experiences with the racist institutions of the time. Following his time in the military, he had trouble with police officers and the criminal justice system. Like many of the Beats, Kaufman was also a fan of Jazz and incorporated it into his work to describe relationships with others. LeRoi Jones ( Amiri Baraka) married Beat writer, Hettie Cohen, who became Hettie Jones, in 1958. They worked together with Diane di Prima, to develop ''Yūgen'' magazine. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were associated with a number of Beats ( Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso). That is, until the assassination of the Civil Rights leader, Malcolm X. During this time, LeRoi Jones branched off from the other Beat writers, including his wife, to find his identity among the African-American and Islamic communities. The change in his social setting along with awakening influenced his writing and brought about the development of many of his most notable works, like ''Somebody Blew Up America'', in which he reflected on the attacks of 9/11 and America's reaction to this incident in relation to other occurrences in America.

Culture and influences

Sexuality

One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation, which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time. Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg and Burroughs). However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair ('' The Subterraneans''), and group sex ('' The Dharma Bums''). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominately homosocial.

Drug use

The original members of the Beat Generation used a number of different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs such as peyote, Ayahuasca, and LSD. They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects. Their drug use was broadly inspired by intellectual interest, and many Beat writers thought that their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight, or productivity. The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation.

Romanticism

Gregory Corso considered English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem ''Adonais

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