The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. (This paragraph has been quoted exactly from Wikipedia)

Main authors:

- Jack Kerouac was the first prominent figure of this generation and the writer of its most iconic text, the novel On the Road (1957), based on his travels and those of his friends throughout the United States.

- William S. Burroughs wrote another iconic novel, Naked Lunch (1959). Both the novel and the author are very controversial- the novel, because of its obscene language and plot. The author, among other things, admittedly killed his second wife.

- Allen Ginsberg, a poet, is the author of the most iconic poem of the generation, entitled Howl (1956). Most of his poetry talks about his homosexuality and about his violent rejection of Western Culture.

Jack Kerouac

William S. Burroughs

Allen Ginsberg