In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the writers of the Beat Generation
revolutionized American literature with their iconoclastic approach to
language and their angry assault on the conformity and conservatism of
postwar society. They and their followers took aim at the hypocrisy and
taboos of their time - particularly those involving sex, race, and
class - in such provocative works as Jack Kerouac's On the Road
(1957), Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1956), and William S. Burroughs's
Naked Lunch (1959).
In this Very Short Introduction, David Sterritt offers a concise
overview of the social, cultural, and aesthetic sensibilities of the
Beats, bringing out the similarities that connected them and also the
many differences that made them a loosely knit collective rather than an
organized movement.
Figures in the saga include Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, John Clellon Holmes, Carolyn Cassady, and Gary Snyder. As
Sterritt ranges from Greenwich Village and San Francisco to Mexico,
western Europe, and North Africa, he sheds much light on how the Beats
approached literature, drugs, sexuality, art, music, and religion.
Members of the Beat Generation hoped that their radical rejection of
materialism, consumerism, and regimentation would inspire others to
purify their lives and souls as well. Yet they urged the remaking of
consciousness on a profoundly inward-looking basis, cultivating "the
unspeakable visions of the individual," in Kerouac's phrase. The idea
was to revolutionize society by revolutionizing thought, not the other
way around.
This audiobook explains how the Beats used their antiauthoritarian
visions and radical styles to challenge dominant values, fending off
absorption into mainstream culture while preparing ground for the
larger, more explosive social upheavals of the 1960s. More than half a
century later, the Beats' impact can still be felt in literature,
cinema, music, theater, and the visual arts. This compact introduction
explains why.
