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Beat Generation

The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the
1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of
"Beat" culture: rejection of received standards, innovations in style, use of illegal drugs, alternative
sexualities, an interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human
condition.[1]
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the
Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature. [2] Both Howl and Naked Lunch were
the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. [3][4] The
members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated nonconformity and spontaneous creativity.
The original "Beat Generation" writers met in New York. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures
(with the exception of Burroughs) ended up together in San Francisco where they met and became friends
of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.
In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger
counterculture movements.
Origin of name
Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground,
anti-conformist youth movement in New York. [5] The name arose in a conversation with writer John
Clellon Holmes. Kerouac allows that it was street hustler Herbert Huncke who originally used the phrase
"beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten
down" within the African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to
his socks",[6][7][8] but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations
"upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat". [9]
Significant places
Columbia University
The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and the meeting of Kerouac,
Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, Hal Chase and others. Jack Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship.
[10]
Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic, [11][12][13] many of their ideas were formed in
response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed
the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from Arthur Rimbaud), to counteract what they perceived
as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals.
Times Square "Underworld"
Burroughs had an interest in criminal behavior and got involved in dealing stolen goods and narcotics. He
was soon addicted to opiates. Burroughs' guide to the criminal underworld (centered in particular around
New York's Times Square) was small-time criminal and drug-addict Herbert Huncke. The Beats were
drawn to Huncke, who later started to write himself, convinced that he possessed a vital worldly
knowledge unavailable to them from their largely middle-class upbringings.
Ginsberg was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to pull Ginsberg over while he was driving with
Huncke, his car filled with stolen items Huncke planned to fence. Ginsberg crashed the car while trying to
flee and escaped on foot, but left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead
insanity to avoid a jail term, and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital, where he met Carl
Solomon.[14]

Carl Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in selfconsciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism. Solomon was
given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was
dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs'
first novel Junky in 1953.[15]
Greenwich Village
Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low
rent and the 'small town' element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in
Washington Square Park.[16] Allen Ginsberg was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs,
who lived at 69 Bedford Street. [17] Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars
in the area including the San Remo at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleeker,
Chumley's, and Minetta Tavern.[17] Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and other abstract
expressionists were also frequent visitors and collaborators of the beats. [18]
Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beatnik culture in the Village into the Bohemian
hippie culture of the 1960s.[19]
San Francisco and the Six Gallery reading
See also: San Francisco Renaissance
Allen Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved on to
San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at the end of 1954 and began writing Howl.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, of the new City Lights Bookstore, started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets
Series in 1955.
Kenneth Rexroth's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos
Williams, an old friend of Rexroth's, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally
Hedrick[20] to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of
ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.
Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7,
1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late
friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of Howl. It
was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.
It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement, since the 1956 publication of Howl (City
Lights Pocket Poets, no. 4) and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention. [21][22]
The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, whose
chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who is actually based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was
impressed with Snyder and they were close for a number of years. In the spring of 1955 they lived
together in Snyder's Mill Valley cabin. Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic,
with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology
and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation."
As documented in the conclusion of the The Dharma Bums, Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large
measure in order to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism. He would spend most of the next 10
years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums, and the book undoubtedly
helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books. [23]
Pacific Northwest
The Beats also spent time in the Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac
wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in The Dharma Bums and On the Road.[24]

Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied
Anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the
campus around 1955 and 1956.[25] Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy
class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds.[26]
Significant figures
Burroughs was introduced to the group by David Kammerer, who was in love with Lucien Carr. Carr had
befriended freshman Allen Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew
Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944.
On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed
later was self-defense. [27] He waited,[citation needed] then dumped the body in the Hudson River, later seeking
advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him
dispose of the weapon. Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to
manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither
were prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his own works: once in his first novel, The
Town and the City, and again in one of his last, Vanity of Duluoz. He wrote a collaboration novel with
Burroughs, "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks", concerning the murder.
Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady was introduced to the group in 1947, and had a number of significant effects. Cassady
became something of a muse to Ginsberg; they had a romantic affair, and Ginsberg became Cassady's
personal writing-tutor. Kerouac's road-trips with Cassady in the late 1940s became the focus of his second
novel, On the Road. Cassady's verbal style is one of the sources of the spontaneous, jazz-inspired rapping
that later became associated with "beatniks". Cassady impressed the group with the free-flowing style of
his letters, and Kerouac cited them as a key influence on his spontaneous prose style.
Gender and the Beats
The female contemporaries of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs were intimately involved in the creation
of Beat philosophy and literature, and yet remain markedly absent from the mainstream interpretation of
the most important aspects and figures of the movement. Further, the Beat writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg
and Burroughs often portray female characters in flat, traditional gender roles most typical of an ideal
1950s American housewife. Rather than offering liberation from social norms, Beat culture actually often
marginalized and further culturally repressed American women and, more specifically, many of the
female writers of the time period. [28] Although women are less acknowledged in histories of the first Beat
Generation, the omission may be due more to the period's sexism than the reality.[29] Joan Vollmer for
instance did not write, although she appears as a minor figure in multiple authors' works. [30] She has
become legendary as the wife of William S. Burroughs, documented in Kerouac's novels, and killed by
Burroughs in a drunken game of William Tell.[31] Corso and Diane Di Prima, among others, insist that
there were female Beats, but that it was more difficult for women to get away with a Bohemian existence
in that era.[32][33]
Notable Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson; Carolyn
Cassady; Hettie Jones; Joanne Kyger; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; Diane DiPrima; and Ruth Weiss, who
also made films. Poet Elise Cowen took her life in 1963. Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats
than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism. Later, women emerged who claimed to be strongly
influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and
Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s.[34][35]

Sexuality
Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg and
Burroughs).[citation needed] Some met each other through gay connections, including David Kammerer's
interest in Lucien Carr.[citation needed]
One of the contentious features of Ginsberg's poem Howl for authorities were lines about homosexual
sex. William Burroughs' Naked Lunch contains content dealing with same-sex relations and pedophilia.
Both works were unsuccessfully prosecuted for obscenity. Victory by the publishers helped to curtail
literary censorship in the United States.[3][4]
Considered racy at the time, Kerouac's writings are now considered mild. [citation needed] On the Road mentions
Neal Cassady's bisexuality without comment, while Visions of Cody confronts it.[citation needed] However, the
first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair
(The Subterraneans), and group sex (The Dharma Bums). The relationships among men in Kerouac's
novels are predominantly homosocial.[36]
Culture and influences
Drug use
The original members of the Beat Generation used a number of different drugs, including alcohol,
marijuana, benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs including peyote, yage, and LSD.[citation needed]
Much of this usage was "experimental", in that they were often initially unfamiliar with the effects of
these drugs. Use of the drugs were much inspired by intellectual interest, but later many times turned into
simple "use" without reason.
The actual results of this "experimentation" can be difficult to determine. Claims that some of these drugs
can enhance creativity, insight or productivity were quite common, as is the belief that the drugs in use
were a key influence on the social events of the time (see recreational drug use).[37]
Romanticism
Gregory Corso worshiped Percy Bysshe Shelley as a hero and was buried at the foot of Shelley's Grave in
the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's Adonais at the beginning of Kaddish, and
cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure
compared Ginsberg's Howl to Shelley's breakthrough poem Queen Mab.[38]
Ginsberg's most important Romantic influence was William Blake.[39] Blake was the subject of Ginsberg's
self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948. [40] Ginsberg would study Blake all his life. The
first time Michael McClure met Ginsberg, they talked about Blake: McClure saw him as a revolutionary;
Ginsberg saw him as a prophet.[citation needed]John Keats was also cited as an influence.
Early American sources
Important American inspirations for the Beats included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman, who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most
famous poems ("A Supermarket in California"). Edgar Allan Poe is occasionally acknowledged, and
Ginsberg claimed Emily Dickinson was an influence on Beat poetry. The novel You Can't Win by Jack
Black had a strong influence on Burroughs.[41]
French surrealism
Surrealism was still in many ways a vital movement in the 1950s. Carl Solomon introduced the work of
Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg, and the poetry of Andr Breton had direct influence on the poem Kaddish.

[citation needed]

Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery and Ron Padgett translated French poetry. Secondgeneration Beat Ted Joans was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton. [42]
Philip Lamantia introduced surrealist poetry to the original Beats. [43] The poetry of Gregory Corso and
Bob Kaufman shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random
juxtaposition of dissociated images,[citation needed] and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in
Ginsberg's poetry.[citation needed] As the legend goes, when meeting Marcel Duchamp Ginsberg kissed his shoe
and Corso cut off his tie.[44][page needed] Other shared Beat interests were Guillaume Apollinaire, Arthur
Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.[citation needed]
Modernism
Though the Beat aesthetic posited itself against T. S. Eliot's creed of strict objectivity and literary
modernism's new classicism, certain modernist writers were major influences on the Beats, including
Louis-Ferdinand Cline, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and H.D.. Pound was specifically
important to Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg[citation needed].
William Carlos Williams was an influence on many of the Beats, with his encouragement to speak with an
American voice instead of imitating the European poetic voice and European forms. [citation needed] When
Williams came to Reed College to give a lecture, then students Snyder, Whalen, and Welch were deeply
impressed.[citation needed] Williams was a personal mentor to Ginsberg, both being from Paterson, New Jersey.
[citation needed]

Williams published several of Ginsberg's letters to him in his epic poem Paterson and wrote an
introduction to two of Ginsberg's books. [citation needed] And many of the Beats (Ginsberg specifically) helped
promote Williams' writing. Ferlinghetti's City Lights published a volume of his poetry. [citation needed]
Gertrude Stein was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch. Admitted influences for Kerouac
include Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.[45]
Topics
A section devoted to the beat generation at a bookstore in Stockholm, Sweden
While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself
has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s.
[citation needed]

In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation: [46]

Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing
women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
Liberation of the world from censorship.

Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.

The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the
Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and
sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.

The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael
McClure, the notion of a "Fresh Planet."

Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of


Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.

Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a "second religiousness" developing within an
advanced civilization.

Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.

Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan
from On the Road: "The Earth is an Indian thing."

"Beatniks"
Main article: Beatnik
The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, a
portmanteau on the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that
beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist". [47] Caen's
term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotypethe man with a goatee and
beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums, while free-spirited women wearing black
leotards dance.
An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach) which
employed the artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals,
creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists to San Francisco could take bus tours
to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury
district ten years later.[48] A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing)
the new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in
The Village Voice and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry.[49] "Beatniks" appeared in
many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard
G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (19591963).
While some of the original Beats embraced the beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous
(Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in the comic strip Pogo[50]) others criticized the beatniks
as inauthentic poseurs. Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that
many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild. [51]
"Hippies"
Main article: Hippie
During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s,
accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie".[52] Many of the original Beats remained
active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. Notably,
however, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s politically radical protest
movements as an excuse to be "spiteful".[53]
There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippiessomber colors, dark sunglasses, and
goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The beats were known for "playing it
cool" (keeping a low profile),[54] but the hippies became known for "being cool" (displaying their
individuality).[citation needed]
Beyond style, there were changes in substance: The Beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the
hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. [55]
Literary legacy
Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers,
most notably Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Though they had no direct connection,
other writers considered the Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's
Rainbow)[56] and Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues).

William Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature; he also inspired the cyberpunk
genre.[57][58][59]
One-time Beat writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka helped initiate the Black Arts movement.[60]
As there was focus on live performance among the Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced
by the Beats. Saul Williams, for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major
influences.[61]
Carl Solomon, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at the Gotham Book Mart, New
York City, 1977
The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under
Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics[62] and later at
Brooklyn College stressed the social-activist legacy of the Beats and created its own body of literature.
Known authors are Anne Waldman, Antler, Andy Clausen, David Cope, Eileen Myles, Eliot Katz, Paul
Beatty, Sapphire, Lesla Newman, Jim Cohn, Thomas R. Peters, Jr. (poet and owner of beat book shop),
Sharon Mesmer, Randy Roark, Josh Smith, David Evans.[citation needed]
Rock and pop music
The Beats had a pervasive influence on rock and roll and popular music, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan
and Jim Morrison: the Beatles spelled their name with an "a" partly as a Beat Generation reference, [63] and
John Lennon was a fan of Jack Kerouac. [64] Ginsberg later met and became friends of members of the
Beatles. Paul McCartney played guitar on Ginsberg's album Ballad of the Skeletons.
Ginsberg was a close friend of Bob Dylan [65] and toured with him on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975.
Dylan cites Ginsberg and Kerouac as major influences.
Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as one of his biggest influences, and fellow Doors member Ray Manzarek
has said "We wanted to be beatniks".[66] In his book "Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors", Manzarek
also writes "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have
existed." Michael McClure was also a friend of members of The Doors, at one point touring with
keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
Ginsberg was a friend of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, a group of which Cassady was a member, which
also included members of the Grateful Dead. In the 1970s, Burroughs was a friend of Mick Jagger, Lou
Reed, and Patti Smith.
British progressive rock band Soft Machine is named after Burroughs' novel The Soft Machine.
Singer-songwriter Tom Waits, a Beat fan, wrote "Jack and Neal" about Kerouac and Cassady, and
recorded "On the Road" (a song written by Kerouac after finishing the novel) with Primus. He later
collaborated with Burroughs on the theatrical work The Black Rider.
The musical group Steely Dan is named after a steam-powered dildo in Burrough's Naked Lunch.
Jazz Musician/Film Composer Robert Kraft (not NFL Team owner Robert Kraft) wrote and released a
contemporary homage to Jack Kerouac and Beat Generation aesthetics entitled "Beat Generation" on the
1988 CD release "Quake City".
The Japanese free jazz band Tipographica wrote a song called "Naked Lunch" to celebrate William's work
with the same name.

Low rock musician Mark Sandman who was the bass guitarist, lead vocalist and a former member of the
alternative jazz rock band Morphine, was widely open to the beat generation and wrote a song called
"Kerouac" to make a tribute to Jack Kerouac and his personal philosophy and way of life.
There was a resurgence of interest in the beats among bands in the 1980s. Ginsberg worked with the
Clash. Burroughs worked with Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, and Ministry, amongst others. Bono of
U2 cites Burroughs as a major influence, [67][68] and Burroughs appeared briefly in a U2 video in 1997. [69]
Post-punk band Joy Division named a song Interzone after a collection of stories by Burroughs. Laurie
Anderson featured Burroughs on her 1984 album Mister Heartbreak and in her 1986 concert film, Home
of the Brave. King Crimson produced the album Beat inspired by the Beat Generation.
Criticism
Norman Podhoretz, a student at Columbia with Kerouac and Ginsberg, later became a critic of the Beats.
His 1958 Partisan Review article "The Know-Nothing Bohemians," was a vehement critique primarily of
Kerouac's On the Road and The Subterraneans, as well as Ginsberg's Howl.[70] His central criticism is that
the Beat embrace of spontaneity is bound up in an anti-intellectual worship of the "primitive" that can
easily turn toward mindlessness and violence. Podhoretz asserted that there was a link between the Beats
and criminal delinquents.
Ginsberg responded in a 1958 interview with The Village Voice,[71] specifically addressing the charge that
the Beats destroyed "the distinction between life and literature." "The bit about anti-intellectualism is a
piece of vanity, we had the same education, went to the same school, you know there are 'Intellectuals'
and there are intellectuals. Podhoretz is just out of touch with twentieth-century literature, he's writing for
the eighteenth-century mind. We have a personal literature nowProust, Wolfe, Faulkner, Joyce."[72]
Internal criticism
In a 1974 interview,[73] Gary Snyder comments on the subject of "casualties" of the Beat Generation: [74]
Kerouac was a casualty too. And there were many other casualties that most people have never heard of,
but were genuine casualties. Just as, in the 60s, when Allen and I for a period there were almost publicly
recommending people to take acid. When I look back on that now I realize there were many casualties,
responsibilities to bare.
Lawrence Durrell comments on the subject "about Eduardo Sanguinetti" in the Preface of Sanguinetti's
Poetry and Philosophical Essay Alter Ego,[75][76]
This is what the work of Sanguinetti shows us, in the form of a mirror image. Or, to put it in less
philosophical terms, Eduardo Sanguinetti, like almost any other creator, has little understanding of what
he is going to do and only partially understands what he has done.
Sanguinetti in a way of contemplating the world and all his work, whatever the medium, reveals this
particular way.
Sanguinetti is a style. He is an extraordinarily coherent statement of a way of being in the world.
The Beats comment on the Beat Generation
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"The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who
came to the conclusion that society sucked."

- Amiri Baraka[citation needed]


Three writers do not a generation make.
- Gregory Corso[77] (sometimes also attributed to Gary Snyder).
"Beat means to have all the blather knocked out of you by experience, suddenly seeing things as
they are. Beat doesn't mean a broken spirit, on the contrary, it's scourged of external blather!
Gregory Corso[citation needed]
"Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a
wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose."
- Allen Ginsberg[78]
"John Clellon Holmes... and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost
Generation and the subsequent existentialism and I said 'You know John, this is really a beat
generation'; and he leapt up and said, 'That's it, that's right!'"
- Jack Kerouac[79]
"But yet, but yet, woe, woe unto those who think that the Beat Generation means crime,
delinquency, immorality, amorality ... woe unto those who attack it on the grounds that they
simply don't understand history and the yearning of human souls ... woe in fact unto those who
make evil movies about the Beat Generation where innocent housewives are raped by beatniks! ...
woe unto those who spit on the Beat Generation, the wind'll blow it back."
- Jack Kerouac[citation needed]

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