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In the 1940s and 50s, a new generation of poets rebelled against the conventions of mainstream American life and writing. They became known as the Beat Poets––a name that evokes weariness, down-and-outness, the beat under a piece of music, and beatific spirituality.
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. [1] The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks.
The Beat poets and writers were the ideological predecessors and mentors of the late 1960s sexual and political revolution led by the Hippies. Much of their work explores and critiques American culture, society, and politics.
The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. These poets would become known as the Beat Generation, a group of writers interested in changing consciousness and defying conventional writing.
Beat poets sought to transform poetry into an expression of genuine lived experience. They read their work, sometimes to the accompaniment of progressive jazz, in such Beat strongholds as the Coexistence Bagel Shop and Lawrence Ferlinghetti ’s City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.
Beat poets. A national group of poets who emerged from San Francisco’s literary counterculture in the 1950s. Its ranks included Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, and Gary Snyder.
The Beat Poets were an important movement in American poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. Favouring free verse and spontaneous writing in many cases, poets of the Beat Generation sought a more direct and authentic poetic voice.
The Beat poets were a group of friends living in New York City in the decade following World War II who, through their collaborations, experiments with poetry rhythms, and questioning of the status quo, forever altered the relationship of poetry to popular culture.
The Beat Generation is one of the defining movements of American poetry and one of the most important parts of the broader modernist movement. Its influence can be seen in the hippie movement of the following decades and the development of music, film, and visual arts.
Learn more about Beat poets, the historical context they wrote in, and the lasting effects of the Beat Poetry movement.