"The Beats Generation
Near the end of the Second World War, a “movement” was formed by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs as well as a group of other writers and artists. This movement found its voice during the fifties and became especially influential during the sixties. Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs formed a “New Vision” of culture on broader consciousness, unconventional morals, and uncensored self-expression. The core group became the catalyst for a new generation who late became known as the “Beats.”
The original meaning for ‘beat’ meant nothing more than ‘bad’ or ‘ruined.’ The word is usually used in this way. When a person is tired, they may say, “I’m beat.” People can be beaten-up, or ...
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that the word meant “exhausted, at the bottom the world, looking up or out, sleepless, wide-eyes, perceptive, rejected b society, on your own, streetwise.”
Kerouac was completely captivated by the mood and tone of the word ‘beat.’ He insisted that the word possessed a deeper quality and meant something spiritual and mysterious. That kind of beatness is what Kerouac was describing in himself and his friends. They were bright young Americans that couldn’t fit into society as clean-cut soldiers or self-satisfied young businessmen. They were ‘beat’ because they didn’t have and didn’t believe in straight jobs. They had to struggle to survive, selling drugs for money to buy food and pay the rent for their dirty apartment. They were ‘beat’ because they hitchhiked across the continent because they couldn’t stay in the same place without becoming restless and bored.
But the word has a second meaning. ‘Beat’ meant ‘beatific’ or sacred and holy. Beatific was the idea stemming from the ...
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to analyze the rather aimless direction taken by so many young men and women after the war, Holmes urged Jack to characterize the new attitude by trying to define it in a few phrases. Kerouac replied, “It’s a kind of beatness. . .and a weariness with all the forms all the conventions of the world. . So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation.”
The remark was hardly intended to be the definitive statement it wound up being. Yet like so many other of Kerouac’s remarks, it was implanted in a deep-rooted philosophy. Inherent in his observation was an idea that symbolized the energy behind the lives and literature of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, Holmes, as well as many others.
The ...
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""The Beats Generation." Essayworld.com. February 24, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Beats-Generation/60822.
""The Beats Generation." Essayworld.com. February 24, 2007. Accessed April 18, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Beats-Generation/60822.
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