A report on Beat Generation, Hippie and Ken Kesey
He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
- Ken KeseyThe Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation.
- HippieNeal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus Furthur, was the primary bridge between these two generations.
- Beat GenerationDuring the late 1950s and early 1960s, novelist Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally in California.
- HippieDuring the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie".
- Beat Generation2 related topics with Alpha
Counterculture of the 1960s
1 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.
As the era unfolded, what emerged were new cultural forms and a dynamic subculture that celebrated experimentation, modern incarnations of Bohemianism, and the rise of the hippie and other alternative lifestyles.
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.
Allen Ginsberg
1 linksAmerican poet and writer.
American poet and writer.
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.
Later 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.