Beatnik Influence On American Culture

The “Lost Generation” is essentially a term that is used to describe the young adults of the 1920’s who were changing with the times and rebelling against what America had become after the war. They populated areas like Paris and London where they expected to find literary freedom and a cosmopolitan way of life. The “Lost Generation" of American writers and poets left America, seeking refuge from the broken culture and devastation that had come from the war, and ended up in Paris, a city that had a thriving art culture where they could write freely and lavish in the Bohemian lifestyle without rules. They drank, traveled, had love affairs, and wrote. They were influenced by the paintings of artists like Dada and Picasso and collected their works, as well as socialized with them. They critiqued each other’s writing and often met in bookstores, cafés, and bars to talk about their works and life in general. They had mostly upper-middle-class upbringings and were sustained in hard times by their parents' fortunes. They chose to come to Paris to seek artistic fulfillment and ended up writing what is possibly considered some of the best fiction of the 20th century. It was the time when writers, painters, musicians, and composers went to Paris to work and

The rise of counterculture in the 1960s was caused in large part by the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, military conscription, and the teenagers of affluent middle-class parents. The teenagers of those families wanted more than anything else to experience life to its fullest, before it was too late. The irony was that “ behaviors by counterculture youth were and are an easy target for criticism, especially on the part of those eager to belittle the decade’s significance ( Morgan; 170). There were two waves of the counterculture (hippie) movement; the first dealt with the shock of JFK’s assassination, government aid to Vietnam, the student sit-ins and the militant stance of the Black Panthers. All of which caused a weariness to hippie-dome

    The Beat Generation can be perceived in many ways depending on how a person may translate the traits characterizing it but the real definition of this generation remains the same all throughout. The Beat Generation is a literary movement that happened during the 1950’s after World War II and was greatly influenced by a group of artists and authors who explored. The Beat movement was centralized in certain communities where freedom of expression was greatly prevalent. The lifestyle in bohemian centralized communities were explored and described by many authors and some of the most well-known authors of this generation are  Herbert Huncke, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Jack Kerouac. All authors gave light to what beat generation was like through their work of art. They outlined that Beat Generation is an approach made by the people to reach a certain goal. Some of the goals are personal release and purification. Sounds familiar? These goals are more similar to the goals of yoga. These goals were attained mainly through the use of drugs, sex, and expressed in jazz music.. The Beat Generation is a  rejection of standard narrative values, spiritual quest, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with drugs, and sexual exploration. All these components are widely known as the characteristics of “hippies” and

Through their music, they were able to freely discuses social issues and frustrations with the war on a mass scale. In addition, young people were able to listen to this music and feel connected as a generation united against the war. The sparked protest around the country and birthed the music festive known as Woodstock. In Crossroads, Michell K. Hall examines popular culture in the United Sates between the 1950’s and 1980’s. One of those parts of popular culture was music.

The challenge to a variety of political and social issues distinctly characterizes the post World War II (WWII) era, from the mid 1940’s through the 1970’s, in the United States. These issues included African-American civil rights, women’s rights, the threat of Communism, and America’s continuous war effort by entering the Cold War immediately after the end to WWII. These debated issues led to the birth of multiple social movements, collectively referred to as the New Left, rooted in liberalism. In response to the New Left, a strong brand of conservatism, collectively referred to as the Right, arose to counteract these movements. Despite opposing ideology and convictions,

The Beat Generation was a movement which rebelled against the social and literary conformity and conservatism of white, middle class, suburban, post-war America. The term "Beat" holds many origins. One is canonized, as tired and weary. Another derivation, pinpointed by Kerouac, comes from the word "beatitude," holy, state of ultimate bliss. A relevant definition to jazz involves the

The beat generation was a movement that sought to oppose American society values, and any sort of control. They explored Eastern religions, was somewhat postmodernism, rejected the materialistic culture, spoke about drugs, our conscious mind, and fought for sexual liberation and exploration with their unapologetically offensive language. While reading the novel Jitterbug Perfume written by Tom Robbin, one can witness how the novel exhibits aspects of the beat literature, and thus concluding that the beat generation served as inspiration to Tom Robbin.

They began to reject the values and conventions of their parents (“Post-World War II: 1946-60”). The rebellious youth of the western world soon emerged to be called “beatniks”. The beatniks were notorious for using recreational drugs, listening to rock and roll, having a disdain for conventional customs and morals, and sexual activity (Edelman). During the time of the dynamic Beat Generation, they were looked down upon for their ideals. As parents watched the younger generation drift away from the social norm, parents perceived the Beat Movement as a threat to society (Baers).

Ken Kesey was a part of The Beat generation and many of their ideologies and the socio cultural context of U.S post WWII were evident through characters and various discourses throughout One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, giving us his invited reading.

It was a 1951 TIME cover story, which dubbed the Beats a ‘Silent Generation, ’ that led to Allen Ginsberg’s retort in his poem ‘America,’ in which he vocalises a frustration at this loss of self- importance. The fifties Beat Generation, notably through Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl as will here be discussed, fought to revitalise individuality and revolutionise their censored society which seemed to produce everything for the masses at the expense of the individual’s creative and intellectual potential. Indeed, as John Clellon Holmes once noted: “TIME magazine called them the Silent Generation, but this may have been because TIME was not

To understand the sixties counterculture, we must understand the important role of Bob Dylan. His lyrics fueled the rebellious youth in America. Songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times are A-Changin” made him favorable to anti-war demonstrators and supporters of the Civil Rights movement. He was commonly hailed as the spokesman for his generation. Dylan used lyrics to allow the youth to find their own form of counter-culture. The youth generation began to see the effects racism, war, etc. effect the society in America. To combat this, the youth created their own form of counter-culture to promote a peaceful change within society. Some of their actions include forming anti-war protests that opposed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and supporting African Americans/women get the rights they deserve through the Civil Rights Movement. Bob Dylan’s music appealed to the young generation because he openly expresses his disapproval of the establishment in order to influenced his audience to move in a direction for change. Counterculture youth rejected cultural norms of the previous generation and their values and lifestyles opposed the mainstream culture present in the 1950’s. The folk music revival of the early 1960s, as well as the counter-culture movement played an important role in advocating change. Bob Dylan wrote songs that influenced the Civil Rights Movement, New Left Movement, and Anti-War Movement.

The “beat movement” is a literary period born out of World War II. This movement in American Literature has become an important period in the history of literature and society in America. Characterized by personal alienation and contempt for convention, the movement celebrated stylistic freedom and spontaneity. The Beat writers created a new vision of modern life and altered the nature of awareness in America.

The beatniks had a different outlook on how to deal with problems and tragedy in society. Most of the ways this idea of “change”, came about was through articles, literature, films, and music. This made the message of the Beat Movement spread across quickly. Whether it was bad or good news, the beatniks were still getting publicity through the media. The media today still plays an important role when learning about the beatniks of the 1950’s.

My image is about the generation of the Beats. During the post-World War II era, the term "Beats" or "beatniks" described a generation young artists like musicians and poets, who expressed themselves through abstract artwork. Their goal was to encourage non-conformity and spontaneous creativity while rebelling against the conformist middle class and rejecting traditional artistic styles. The central group of the Beat Generation authors consisted of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, Lucien Carr, and Jack Kerouac. Presented in the image below, Louis Armstrong was a famous trumpet player during the Beat Generation. His artistry permitted him to be socially acceptable in the American society which was highly limited for African

Influences of the Beat Movement can be noted in the next phase of American History: Hippie counter-culture of the 1960s. The Beat Generation was an important political catalyst for those minorities that had no voice. The “beatniks” of the movement were seen as a threat by those Americans that lived in the typical suburbs of American who tried to raise their children in morally upright ways (Silesky, 81).