The term beat generation was introduced by Jack Kerouac in approximately 1948 to
describe his social circle 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 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".<BR><BR>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.

The members of the beat generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in
a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity. The beat writers produced a body of
written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its
non-conforming style. Though Kerouac dubbed the term "Beat generation" in 1948,
followers of "Beat literature" did not emerge until the late 1950s and early
1960s. Kerouac's On The Road, which heralded the beginning of "Beat" popularity,
was not published until 1957. By the time the "Beat generation" generated a
following in the mainstream society, most of the Beat writers had descended into
drug addiction and obscurity.

Echoes of the Beat Generation run throughout all the forms of
alternative/counter culture that have existed since then (e.g. "hippies",
"punks", etc). The Beat Generation can be seen as the first modern "subculture".
See the "Influences on Western Culture" section below.

The major beat writings are Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl,
and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Both Howl and Naked Lunch became the focus
of obscenity trials in the United States that helped to liberalize what could be
legally published.


Information @: http://www.jeffosretromusic.com/beatniks.html


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