Beat generation

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".

References

Print

• Morgan, Ted Literary Outlaw The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs (1983) ISBN 0-380-70882-5
• Knight, Brenda. Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution. ISBN 1573241385
• Charters, Ann. Ed. 1992. The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-01.5102-8 (pbk).
• Knight, Arthur Winfield. Ed. The Beat Vision (1987) Paragon House. ISBN 0-913729-40-X; ISBN 0-913729-41-8 (pbk)
• Beat Culture and the New America 1950-1965 published by the Whitney Museum of American Art in accordance with an exhibition in 1995/1996 -- ISBN 0-87427-098-7 softcover, ISBN 2-08013-613-5 hardcover (Flammarion)
• Sanders, Ed Tales of Beatnik Glory (second edition, 1990) ISBN: 0-80651-172-9
• Jack's Book An Oral Biography Of Jack Kerouac* by Barry Gifford & Lawrence Lee (1978)