"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."
Most people regard the writer Jack Kerouac as the king of the beats. It was Kerouac who coined the phrase beat, by proclaiming that his was a beat generation. By this he meant downbeat, but also beatific and beautiful. Kerouac and poet Alan Ginsberg, along with the writer William Burroughs, formed the nucleus of the beat generation - a group of people who broke the mold and changed writing forever.
Kerouac and his group scoured Times Square in New York, looking for new experiences. They sought out drugs, girls, booze, crazy people and crazy situations. Kerouac was the author of the bible of the beat generation, On the Road, published in 1957, the tale of two free spirits seeking adventure while riding across, and questioning, the heart of America. It was his spontaneous prose that turned the book into a breathless roller coaster ride that still inspires people today.
The ethos of the beat generation had influence across all of the arts. It seemed as if, at the time, the young were breaking free of the old constraints. Marlon Brando and James Dean were ripping through film screens. Jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie were playing their music without barriers. Lenny Bruce was questioning racism and sexuality through his comedy routines. Artists such as Jackson Pollock were exploding onto the canvas and ripping apart the Old Masters.
The beat generation was really a response to the Second World War that had just ended. Questions arose about the old way of life and social rules that people were supposed to adhere to. A lot of the questions that the beats asked were greeted with court trials and the attempted banning of their material. Ginsberg’s and Burrough’s literature was subject to bans. One of Ginsberg’s most famous poems, Howl, still cannot be played on daytime American radio.
The beat generation was not questioning society, authority and its rules just for the sake of it. As Dylan sang, the times they are a changing. People were crying out for something new at the time. There was a new sense of freedom after the war, and the beat generation led the way in exploring it.
By the late 1960s, the beat generation had all but imploded. Stick-on beatnik beards were being sold in shops, and the hippies had arrived to take on the mantle of the beats. Kerouac died in 1969 after disassociating himself from the beats. Ginsberg, Burroughs, Neil Cassady, Gregory Corso and many other writers and leading lights, male and female, from the era are gone.
our friends at wikipedia have a great reads as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation#The_.22Beatnik.22_era
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Hedrick#.27A_Genuine_Beatnik.27_Who_Helped_Usher_in_the_Beat_Generation
A Beat Generation web resource exists here>
http://wild-bohemian.com/beats.htm
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