The Beat Generation and Counterculture

The Beat Generation was a literary movement of the 1950s that saw poets and authors challenging the traditional American cultural experience through new ideas about identity, sexuality, drugs, and politics.

The Beat movement traces its beginnings to the 1940s in New York City, where Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs met in 1944. Moving to San Fransico in the 1950s, and in 1956 Ginsberg’s poem HOWL brought out new ideas of self-expression – leading to a trial on obscenity charges. Kerouac’s second novel, On the Road, was published in 1957, and furthered ideas of non-conformity.

By the early 1960s, the Beat movement had faded – but its influence continued through the counterculture movement of that decade. Artists and musicians such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Ken Kesey all claimed affinity for the Beat Generation.