The Beat Generation

• 'Beat Generation'


  Mostly middle-class young people who rejected materialism, consumer culture & conformity for a lifestyle characterised by spontaneity, drugs, free love & a general defiance of authority & convention
• Members of the 'beat generation'

  • Group of Columbia University students
  • Allen Ginsberg
  • Jack Kerouac
• Allen Ginsberg gained fame & critical acclaim after the public readings of 'Howl'


  1956
• The poem 'Howl' was written under the influence of drugs, homosexuality & nonconformity
• San Francisco police seized copies of 'Howl' and the subsequent trial attracted national attention to 'beats'
• Judge W.J Clayton Horn rejected the obscenity charges against 'Howl'
• Jack Kerouac began writing a book about his travels as a young drifter, observing the empty life of contemporary America


  1951
• Kerouac's writing style in the book 'On the Road' owned much to the rush of sensation he got from smoking marijuana as he wrote
• Viking published Kerouac's 'On the Road' in 1957 after removing much of the description of drug use & homosexual practices
• 'On the Road' immediately received critical acclaim