A report on Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey
As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation.
- Allen GinsbergHe considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
- Ken KeseyAllen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959), and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.
- Beat GenerationNeal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus Furthur, was the primary bridge between these two generations.
- Beat GenerationThese parties were described in some of Allen Ginsberg's poems and served as the basis for Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an early exemplar of the nonfiction novel.
- Ken KeseyLater in his life, Ginsberg formed a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan.
- Allen Ginsberg4 related topics with Alpha
Counterculture of the 1960s
3 linksAnti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s.
Anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s.
The popularization of LSD outside of the medical world was hastened when individuals such as Ken Kesey participated in drug trials and liked what they saw.
The Pranksters created a direct link between the 1950s Beat Generation and the 1960s psychedelic scene; the bus was driven by Beat icon Neal Cassady, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was on board for a time, and they dropped in on Cassady's friend, Beat author Jack Kerouac—though Kerouac declined to participate in the Prankster scene.
Neal Cassady
1 links
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
Cassady also appeared in Allen Ginsberg's poems, and in several other works of literature by other writers.
Cassady first met author Ken Kesey during the summer of 1962; he eventually became one of the Merry Pranksters, a group that formed around Kesey in 1964, who were vocal proponents of the use of psychedelic drugs.
William S. Burroughs
1 links
William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature.
In 1943, while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
Prominent admirers of Burroughs' work have included British critic and biographer Peter Ackroyd, the rock critic Lester Bangs, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the authors J. G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Jean Genet, William Gibson, Alan Moore, Kathy Acker and Ken Kesey.
Hippie
1 linksSomeone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around the world.
Someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around the world.
The Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation.
Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed over from the beat movement and became fixtures of the burgeoning hippie and anti-war movements.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, novelist Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally in California.