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| beatniks definition us history: The Beats: A Very Short Introduction David Sterritt, 2013-07-11 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 book 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. About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. |
| beatniks definition us history: Beat Generation Jack Kerouac, 2012-07 No Marketing Blurb |
| beatniks definition us history: The Philosophy of the Beats Sharin N. Elkholy, 2012-01-01 The phrase beat generation -- introduced by Jack Kerouac in 1948 -- characterized the underground, nonconformist youths who gathered in New York City at that time. Together, these writers, artists, and activists created an inimitably American cultural phenomenon that would have a global influence. In their constant search for meaning, the Beats struggled with anxiety, alienation, and their role as the pioneers of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The Philosophy of the Beats explores the enduring literary, cultural, and philosophical contributions of the Beats in a variety of contexts. Editor Sharin N. Elkholy has gathered leading scholars in Beat studies and philosophy to analyze the cultural, literary, and biographical aspects of the movement, including the drug experience in the works of Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, feminism and the Beat heroine in Diane Di Prima's writings, Gary Snyder's environmental ethics, and the issue of self in Bob Kaufman's poetry. The Philosophy of the Beats provides a thorough and compelling analysis of the philosophical underpinnings that defined the beat generation and their unique place in modern American culture. |
| beatniks definition us history: Howl Allen Ginsberg, Eric Drooker, 2010-01-01 Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, and broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. The apocalyptic 'Howl', originally written as a performance piece, became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956. It is considered to be one of the defining works of the Beat Generation, standing alongside that of Burroughs, Kerouac, and Corso. In it, Ginsberg attacks what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in the United States at the time, and takes on issues of sex, drugs and race, simultaneously creating what would become the poetic anthem for US counterculture. |
| beatniks definition us history: Wild Dreams of a New Beginning Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1988 Two acclaimed poetry volumes, Who Are We Now? (1976) and Landscapes of Livingand Dying (1979), are brought together. |
| beatniks definition us history: Beatdom David Wills, 1985-11-04 Beatdom is a magazine for all fans of Beat Generation literature. This is the very first issue of Beatdom, containing interviews with Barry Gifford, Paul Krassner, Ken Babbs and Zane Kesey. We also have a talented group of writers and photographers, who have put together a magazine with features relating the Beat Generation to Buddhism, Bob Dylan, Hunter S Thompson and Walt Whitman; and guides to Beat books, websites and stories. |
| beatniks definition us history: Howl Allen Ginsberg, 2006-10-10 First published in 1956, Allen Ginsberg's Howl is a prophetic masterpiece—an epic raging against dehumanizing society that overcame censorship trials and obscenity charges to become one of the most widely read poems of the century. This annotated version of Ginsberg's classic is the poet's own re-creation of the revolutionary work's composition process—as well as a treasure trove of anecdotes, an intimate look at the poet's writing techniques, and a veritable social history of the 1950s. |
| beatniks definition us history: On the Road Jack Kerouac, 2002-12-31 The classic novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, a sideburned hero of the snowy West. As Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “Beat” and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than fifty years ago. This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction by Ann Charters. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |
| beatniks definition us history: Reality Sandwiches: 1953-1960 Allen Ginsberg, 1963 Wake-up nightmares in Lower East Side, musings in public library, across the U.s. in dream auto, drunk in old Havana, brooding in Mayan ruins, sex daydreams on the West Coast, airplane vision of Kansas, lonely in a leafy cottage, lunch hour in Berkeley ... a wind-up book of dream notes, psalms, journal enigmas, & nude minutes from 1953 to 1960 poems scattered in fugitive magazines here collected now book. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Beats Steven Belletto, 2020-03-12 Kerouac. Ginsberg. Burroughs. These are the most famous names of the Beat Generation, but in fact they were only the front line of a much more wide-ranging literary and cultural movement. This critical history takes readers through key works by these authors, but also radiates out to discuss dozens more writers and their works, showing how they all contributed to one of the most far-reaching literary movements of the post-World War II era. Moving from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, this book explores key aesthetic and thematic innovations of the Beat writers, the pervasiveness of the Beatnik caricature, the role of the counterculture in the post-war era, the involvement of women in the Beat project, and the changing face of Beat political engagement during the Vietnam War era. |
| beatniks definition us history: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, 2010-07-08 The first collection of letters between the two leading figures of the Beat movement Writers and cultural icons Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg are the most celebrated names of the Beat Generation, linked together not only by their shared artistic sensibility but also by a deep and abiding friendship, one that colored their lives and greatly influenced their writing. Editors Bill Morgan and David Stanford shed new light on this intimate and influential friendship in this fascinating exchange of letters between Kerouac and Ginsberg, two thirds of which have never been published before. Commencing in 1944 while Ginsberg was a student at Columbia University and continuing until shortly before Kerouac's death in 1969, the two hundred letters included in this book provide astonishing insight into their lives and their writing. While not always in agreement, Ginsberg and Kerouac inspired each other spiritually and creatively, and their letters became a vital workshop for their art. Vivid, engaging, and enthralling, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters provides an unparalleled portrait of the two men who led the cultural and artistic movement that defined their generation. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Long Revolution Raymond Williams, 2001-03-02 Raymond Williams, whose other works include Keywords, The Country and the City, Culture and Society, and Modern Tragedy, was one of the world’s foremost cultural critics. Almost uniquely, his work bridged the divides between aesthetic and socio-economic inquiry, between Marxist thought and mainstream liberal thought, and between the modern and post-modern world. When The Long Revolution first appeared in 1961, much of the acclaim it received was based on its prescriptions for Britain in the '60s, which form a relatively brief final section of the whole. The body of the book has since come to be recognized as one of the foundation documents in the cultural analysis of English-speaking culture. The “long revolution” of the title is a cultural revolution, which Williams sees as having unfolded alongside the democratic revolution and the industrial revolution. With this book, Williams led the way in recognizing the importance of the growth of the popular press, the growth of standard English, and the growth the reading public in English-speaking culture and in Western culture as a whole. In addition, Williams’s discussion of how culture is to be defined and analyzed has been of considerable importance in the development of cultural studies as an independent discipline. Originally published by Chatto & Windus, The Long Revolution is now available only in this Broadview Encore Edition. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Cold War at Home Philip Jenkins, 1999 One of the most significant industrial states in the country, with a powerful radical tradition, Pennsylvania was, by the early 1950s, the scene of some of the fiercest anti-Communist activism in the United States. Philip Jenkins examines the political an |
| beatniks definition us history: The Cambridge Companion to the Beats Steven Belletto, 2017-02-13 This Companion offers an in-depth overview of the Beat era, one of the most popular literary periods in America. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Bitter End Paul Colby, 2002-05-06 The tale of the famous Greenwich Village coffeehouse turned nightclub, The Bitter End is also the story of the club's manager and owner, Paul Colby. From the early 60s to the 90s, the Bitter End hosted a wide range of influential music and comedy acts that reflected the changing creative atmosphere of the Village, and the country beyond. Pete Seeger made frequent appearances and Peter, Paul, and Mary debuted at the club during the height of the folk music boom, around the same time that Woody Allen and Bill Cosby were headlining with their very different—but equally popular—stand-up acts. After the British Invasion made rock the pre-eminent music in the land, Colby booked electrified folk and rock performers such as Neil Young, Carly Simon, Kris Kristofferson, and many others. Throughout the years, Colby kept up such strong friendships with the artists that they often returned as patrons when they weren't performing—the most famous local regular being Bob Dylan. The stories Colby shares of his amazing years running the Bitter End provide an insider's personal perspective on several decades of American entertainment. Told with fondness and flair, The Bitter End acquaints the world with a man beloved by performers for years. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Other America Michael Harrington, 1997-08 Examines the economic underworld of migrant farm workers, the aged, minority groups, and other economically underprivileged groups. |
| beatniks definition us history: Off the Road Carolyn Cassady, 2008-10-15 This memoir by the woman at the center of the Beat movement is “a great book as well as a wonderful autobiography” (The Washington Post Book World). Written by the woman who loved them all—as wife of Cassady, lover of Kerouac, and friend of Ginsberg—this riveting and intimate memoir spans one of the most vital eras in twentieth-century literature and culture, including the explosive successes of Kerouac’s On the Road and Ginsberg’s Howl, the flowering of the Beat movement, and the social revolution of the 1960s. Artist, writer, and designer Carolyn Cassady reveals a side of Neal Cassady rarely seen—that of husband and father, a man who craved respectability, yet could not resist the thrills of a wilder, and ultimately more destructive, lifestyle. “To the familiar history of the Beat generation, Carolyn Cassady adds a proprietary chapter marked with newness, self-exposure, love and poignancy.” —Publishers Weekly “Rich with gossip, historically significant photographs, intimate memories, [and] unpublished letters.” —The New York Times “A poignant recollection—truthful, coarse, and inviting—teeming with the spirit of the men who inspired and symbolized the dreams of a generation.” —San Francisco Chronicle |
| beatniks definition us history: American Literature in Transition, 1950–1960 Steven Belletto, 2017-12-28 American Literature in Transition, 1950–1960 explores the under-recognized complexity and variety of 1950s American literature by focalizing discussions through a series of keywords and formats that encourage readers to draw fresh connections among literary form and concepts, institutions, cultures, and social phenomena important to the decade. The first section draws attention to the relationship between literature and cultural phenomena that were new to the 1950s. The second section demonstrates the range of subject positions important in the 1950s, but still not visible in many accounts of the era. The third section explores key literary schools or movements associated with the decade, and explains how and why they developed at this particular cultural moment. The final section focuses on specific forms or genres that grew to special prominence during the 1950s. Taken together, the chapters in the four sections not only encourage us to rethink familiar texts and figures in new lights, but they also propose new archives for future study of the decade. |
| beatniks definition us history: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Richard Hofstadter, 2012-01-04 Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society. As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success. —Robert Peel in the Christian Science Monitor |
| beatniks definition us history: Generations Neil Howe, William Strauss, 1992-09-30 Hailed by national leaders as politically diverse as former Vice President Al Gore and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Generations has been heralded by reviewers as a brilliant, if somewhat unsettling, reassessment of where America is heading. William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history -- a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises -- from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millenium. Generations is at once a refreshing historical narrative and a thrilling intuitive leap that reorders not only our history books but also our expectations for the twenty-first century. |
| beatniks definition us history: Howl and Other Poems Allen Ginsberg, 1956-06-01 The epigraph for Howl is from Walt Whitman: Unscrew the locks from the doors!/Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! Announcing his intentions with this ringing motto, Allen Ginsberg published a volume of poetry which broke so many social... |
| beatniks definition us history: The Portable Beat Reader Ann Charters, 1992 Collection of poetry, prose and excepts from writers who were part of the Beat Generation. |
| beatniks definition us history: Art Worlds Howard Saul Becker, 1982-01-01 |
| beatniks definition us history: Beatniks Alan Bisbort, 2009-11-25 This is a revealing look at the events and personalities that defined the Beat Generation, drawing on over three decades of research. Beatniks: A Guide to an American Subculture gets readers past the caricature of the beatnik as a goateed, beret-wearing, bongo-playing poseur, drawing on extensive research to show just how profound an impact the beats had on American culture, politics, and literature. Beatniks conveys the complexity, influences, events, and places that shaped the Beat Generation from the late 1940s to the cusp of the 1960s. The book also features a series of essays on specific aspects of the subculture, as well as interviews with Beat Generation luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, Ann Charters, Roy Harper and Michael McClure. Throughout, readers will meet an extraordinary gallery of people both famous—Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady—and lesser known but no less fascinating, including Kenneth Patchen, Lord Buckley, Mort Sahl, Jack Micheline, Lew Welch, Joan Vollmer Adams, and Lenore Kandel. Also included is a detailed glossary with the origins and meanings of the beat lingo. |
| beatniks definition us history: Making the Scene Stuart Robert Henderson, 2011-01-01 Making the Scene is a history of 1960s Yorkville, Toronto's countercultural mecca. It narrates the hip Village's development from its early coffee house days, when folksingers such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell flocked to the scene, to its tumultuous, drug-fuelled final months. A flashpoint for hip youth, politicians, parents, and journalists alike, Yorkville was also a battleground over identity, territory, and power. Stuart Henderson explores how this neighbourhood came to be regarded as an alternative space both as a geographic area and as a symbol of hip Toronto in the cultural imagination. Through recently unearthed documents and underground press coverage, Henderson pays special attention to voices that typically aren't heard in the story of Yorkville - including those of women, working class youth, business owners, and municipal authorities. Through a local history, Making the Scene offers new, exciting ways to think about the phenomenon of counterculture and urban manifestations of a hip identity as they have emerged in cities across North America and beyond. |
| beatniks definition us history: Mania Ronald K. L. Collins, David M. Skover, 2013-03 By the time Lucien Carr stabbed David Kammerer to death on the banks of the Hudson River in August 1944, it was clear that the hard-partying teenage companion to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs might need to reevaluate his life. A two-year stint in a reformatory straightened out the wayward youth but did little to curb the wild ways of his friends. MANIA tells the story of this remarkable group—who strained against the conformity of postwar America, who experimented with drink, drugs, sex, jazz, and literature, and who yearned to be heard, to remake art and society in their own libertine image. What is more remarkable than the manic lives they led is that they succeeded—remaking their own generation and inspiring the ones that followed. From the breakthrough success of Kerouac's On the Road to the controversy of Ginsberg's Howl and Burroughs' Naked Lunch, the counterculture was about to go mainstream for the first time, and America would never be the same again. Based on more than eight years’ writing and research, Ronald Collins and David Skover—authors of the highly acclaimed The Trials of Lenny Bruce—bring the stories of these artists, hipsters, hustlers, and maniacs to life in a dramatic, fast-paced, and often darkly comic narrative. |
| beatniks definition us history: Style Tribes Caroline Young, 2016-09-01 Style Tribes: The Fashion of Subcultures explores the style, fashions and ideology of youth movements of the last 100 years, including flappers, swing kids, mods, rockers, surfers, hippies, punks, disco, hip hop, Harajuku and hipsters. Fully illustrated, it delves into the stories behind the styles, what sets each of them apart, and looks at the influence and legacy of each of these tribes. The advent of industrialisation, globalisation and modernism in the twentieth century brought with it an explosion of subcultures, most of which are defined by their youthfulness. As subcultures gain media attention they are absorbed into the mainstream, and the style is often picked up by the fashion industry. The book will look at how these subcultures have been translated into fashion, from flappers and teddy boys to punk and grunge. Subcultures inspire, influence and blend into one another: hippies were a continuation of the beat movement, combined with a surfer lifestyle influence, while Jamaicaâ??s rudeboys and London mods inspired the original skinheads. Thereâ??s also a running theme of â??the hipsterâ?? â?? a word that emerged from Harlem in the 1920s from â??hipâ?? or â??hepâ??, meaning non-conformist and one step ahead. This concept has played a part in understanding subcultures including zoot suiters, the jazz loving hipsters of the 1940s, beatniks, the hippie and now the contemporary hipsters with their beards and skinny jeans. Illustrated with historic and contemporary images, it colourfully details each group to give a comprehensive overview of each subculture. |
| beatniks definition us history: Junky William S. Burroughs, 2009 'Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment in life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' Burrough's cult classic is a raw, semi-autobiographical account of drug addiction, which outraged America and influenced generations of writers to come. He relates with unflinching realism the highs and lows of dependency- euphoria, hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings and strange sexual encounters. Junkyis a dark, powerful and mesmerizing account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art. |
| beatniks definition us history: Instructions for a Heatwave Maggie O'Farrell, 2023-08-15 From the award-winning author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait: a sweeping family drama where a father's disappearance forces three adult siblings to come together and confront what they really know about their past. London, 1976. In the thick of a record-breaking heatwave, Gretta Riordan's newly-retired husband has cleaned out his bank account and vanished. Now, for the first time in years, the three Riordan children are converging on their childhood home: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and an ugly secret that has driven a wedge between her and the little sister she once adored; and Aoife (pronounced EE-fah), the youngest, whose new life in Manhattan is elaborately arranged to conceal her illiteracy. As the siblings track down clues to their father's disappearance, they also navigate rocky pasts and long-held secrets. Their search ultimately brings them to their ancestral village in Ireland, where the truth of their family's past is revealed. Wise, lyrical, instantly engrossing, Instructions for a Heatwave is a richly satisfying page-turner from a writer of exceptional intelligence and grace. |
| beatniks definition us history: An Anxious Age Joseph Bottum, 2014-02-11 We live in a profoundly spiritual age, but not in any good way. Huge swaths of American culture are driven by manic spiritual anxiety and relentless supernatural worry. Radicals and traditionalists, liberals and conservatives, together with politicians, artists, environmentalists, followers of food fads, and the chattering classes of television commentators: America is filled with people frantically seeking confirmation of their own essential goodness. We are a nation desperate to stand of the side of morality--to know that we are righteous and dwell in the light. In An Anxious Age, Joseph Bottum offers an account of modern America, presented as a morality tale formed by a collision of spiritual disturbances. And the cause, he claims, is the most significant and least noticed historical fact of the last fifty years: the collapse of the mainline Protestant churches that were the source of social consensus and cultural unity. Our dangerous spiritual anxieties, broken loose from the churches that once contained them, now madden everything in American life. Updating The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism, Max Weber's sociological classic, An Anxious Age undertakes two case studies of contemporary social classes adrift in a nation without the religious understandings that gave them meaning. Looking at the college-educated elite he calls the Poster Children, Bottum sees the post-Protestant heirs of the old mainline Protestant domination of culture: dutiful descendants who claim the high social position of their Christian ancestors even while they reject their ancestors' Christianity. Turning to the Swallows of Capistrano, the Catholics formed by the pontificate of John Paul II, Bottum evaluates the early victories--and later defeats--of the attempt to substitute Catholicism for the dying mainline voice in public life. Sweeping across American intellectual and cultural history, An Anxious Age traces the course of national religion and warns about the strange angels and even stranger demons with which we now wrestle. Insightful and contrarian, wise and unexpected, An Anxious Age ranks among the great modern accounts of American culture. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Town and the City Jack Kerouac, 1973 |
| beatniks definition us history: Doing Nothing Tom Lutz, 2006-05-16 From the author of Crying, a witty, wide-ranging cultural history of our attitudes toward work—and getting out of it Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and loungers: ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Reviled by many, heroes to others, these layabouts stretch and yawn while the rest of society worries and sweats. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their own: To do nothing, as Oscar Wilde said, is the most difficult thing in the world. From Benjamin Franklin's air baths to Jack Kerouac's dharma bums, Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture. Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Beat Face of God Stephen D. Edington, 2005 Jack Kerouac claimed, in the 1950s, that the Beat Generation was a religious generation. He was right then, and his claim remains true for anyone on a spiritual journey today. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Beats, Black Mountain, and New Modes in American Poetry Matt Theado, 2021-09-15 The Beats, Black Mountain, and New Modes of American Poetry explores correspondences amongst the Black Mountain and Beat Generation writers, two of most well-known and influential groups of poets in the 1950s. The division of writers as Beat or Black Mountain has hindered our understanding of the ways that these poets developed from mutual influences, benefitted from direct relations, and overlapped their boundaries. This collection of academic essays refines and adds context to Beat Studies and Black Mountain Studies by investigating the groups’ intersections and undercurrents. One goal of the book is to deconstruct the Beat and Black Mountain labels in order to reveal the shifting and fluid relationships among the individual poets who developed a revolutionary poetics in the 1950s and beyond. Taken together, these essays clarify the radical experimentation with poetics undertaken by these poets. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Story of Ain't David Skinner, 2014-01-28 “It takes true brilliance to lift the arid tellings of lexicographic fussing into the readable realm of the thriller and the bodice-ripper….David Skinner has done precisely this, taking a fine story and honing it to popular perfection.” —Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman The captivating, delightful, and surprising story of Merriam Webster’s Third Edition, the dictionary that provoked America’s greatest language controversy. In those days, Webster’s Second was the great gray eminence of American dictionaries, with 600,000 entries and numerous competitors but no rivals. It served as the all-knowing guide to the world of grammar and information, a kind of one-stop reference work. In 1961, Webster’s Third came along and ignited an unprecedented controversy in America’s newspapers, universities, and living rooms. The new dictionary’s editor, Philip Gove, had overhauled Merriam’s long held authoritarian principles to create a reference work that had “no traffic with…artificial notions of correctness or authority. It must be descriptive not prescriptive.” Correct use was determined by how the language was actually spoken, and not by “notions of correctness” set by the learned few. Dwight MacDonald, a formidable American critic and writer, emerged as Webster’s Third’s chief nemesis when in the pages of the New Yorker he likened the new dictionary to the end of civilization.. The Story of Ain’t describes a great cultural shift in America, when the voice of the masses resounded in the highest halls of culture, when the division between highbrow and lowbrow was inalterably blurred, when the humanities and its figureheads were shunted aside by advances in scientific thinking. All the while, Skinner treats the reader to the chippy banter of the controversy’s key players. A dictionary will never again seem as important as it did in 1961. |
| beatniks definition us history: The Birth of the Beat Generation Steven Watson, 1998 Profiles such writers as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, and notes important events in Beat history. |
| beatniks definition us history: Days Paul Bowles, 2006-06-13 Between 1987 and 1989, Paul Bowles, at the suggestion of a friend, kept a journal to record the daily events of his life. What emerges is not only just a record of the meals, conversations, and health concerns of the author of The Sheltering Sky but also a fascinating look at an artist at work in a new medium. Characterized by a refreshing informality, clear-sightedness, and passages of exquisite prose, these pages record with equal fascination the behavior of an itinerant spider, a brutal episode of violence in a Tangier marketplace, and the pageantry and excess of Malcolm Forbes's seventieth birthday party. In Days, a master observer of the foreign and obscure turns his attentions toward his own daily existence, giving us a startlingly candid portrait of his life in late twentieth-century Tangier. |
| beatniks definition us history: What was the Hipster? Mark Greif, 2010 |
| beatniks definition us history: The Handy American History Answer Book David Hudson, 2015-07-20 Early civilizations, Native Americans, the English colonies, slavery, the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights begin the journey and lay the foundation for the United States of today. The Handy American History Answer Book takes a walk through the economic, political, and social forces, as well as the military conflicts that created, changed, and built the United States. It explains the impact of the biggest events, the wars, the presidents, lesser-known personalities and figures, sports, music, and much more. This handy primer is a captivating, concise, and convenient history of America and Americans. From Washington to the microchip, Columbus to modern terrorist threats, the Anasazi to the iPhone, The Handy American History Answer Book traces the development of the nation, including the impact of the Civil War, the discovery of gold in California, the inventions, the political and economic crises, and the technology transforming modern culture today. It answers nearly 900 commonly asked questions and offers fun facts about American, its history, and people, including What was the Lost Colony? Who were the robber barons? Was the U.S. mainland attacked during World War II? What was Reaganomics? How many states recognize same-sex marriages? |
| beatniks definition us history: Introduction to Sociology 2e Nathan J. Keirns, Heather Griffiths, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Sally Vyain, Tommy Sadler, Jeff D. Bry, Faye Jones, 2015-03-17 This text is intended for a one-semester introductory course.--Page 1. |
Beatnik - Wikipedia
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of …
Beatniks and the Beat Movement - Encyclopedia.com
In an era when many Americans were content to pursue consumer culture, the Beats—or Beatniks—sought out experiences that were more intensely "real." Sometimes "real" …
How the Beat Generation Became “Beatniks” - JSTOR Daily
May 5, 2019 · In the media, beatniks were mostly portrayed as “innocuous and silly figures, causing Americans to laugh at them …
What is the difference between beatniks and hippies
Oct 3, 2022 · Beatniks were more focused on artistic expression and intellectualism while hippies were more focused on peace, love, and communal living. While both groups …
Who Were the Beatniks?
Jun 26, 2023 · The Beatniks were the layabouts who dressed like their Beat idols and frequented coffee shops, but they were not the creators of great art that the Beats were. …
Beatnik - Wikipedia
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American …
Beatniks and the Beat Movement - Encyclopedia.com
In an era when many Americans were content to pursue consumer culture, the Beats—or Beatniks—sought out experiences that were more intensely "real." Sometimes "real" …
How the Beat Generation Became “Beatniks” - JSTOR Daily
May 5, 2019 · In the media, beatniks were mostly portrayed as “innocuous and silly figures, causing Americans to laugh at them and embrace them.” TV’s favorite beatnik was Maynard …
What is the difference between beatniks and hippies
Oct 3, 2022 · Beatniks were more focused on artistic expression and intellectualism while hippies were more focused on peace, love, and communal living. While both groups challenged the …
Who Were the Beatniks?
Jun 26, 2023 · The Beatniks were the layabouts who dressed like their Beat idols and frequented coffee shops, but they were not the creators of great art that the Beats were. The Beats …
Beatniks - (AP US History) - Vocab, Definition, Explanations
Beatniks were a group of American writers and artists in the 1950s and early 1960s known for their rejection of mainstream values and exploration of alternative lifestyles.
10 of the Best Beatnik Poems Everyone Should Read
Wherever the term ‘Beat’ truly originated, it’s true that the 1950s was, in many ways, the decade of the Beatnik poets. Below, we select and introduce ten of the best poems by Beat-era poets …
Before There Were Hippies, There Were Beatniks - Vintage …
Oct 8, 2014 · Beatniks were followers of the Beat Generation - influential poets and authors through the late 1940s to the early '60s. Jack Kerouac came up with the "beat generation" …
BEATNIK Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of BEATNIK is a person who participated in a social movement of the 1950s and early 1960s which stressed artistic self-expression and the rejection of the mores of …
Exploring Beatniks and the Beat Generation Legacy
May 23, 2024 · The Beatniks were a group of American writers and artists prominent in the 1950s and early 1960s who were part of the Beat Generation, a movement known for its rejection of …
