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Beat Generation Literary Criticism

Beat Generation Literary Criticism MA TT THEADO Kostas Myrsiades, ed., The Beat Generation: Critical Essays. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. x + 352 pp. $29.95. Jennie Skerl, ed., Reconstructing the Beats. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004. 241 pp. $24.95. he Beat generation of writers sought literary achieve- ment, but contemporary fashion, entertainment, and opinion columnists granted them much more notice than did literary critics. When Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road (1957) and the unwitting Daddy of the Beatniks, died in 1969 with only one of his twenty-some books in print, the Beat gen- eration seemed destined to fade away, maybe to be remembered primarily as precursors to the politically engaged hippie move- ment. Time has proven otherwise. In the thirty years following Kerouac’s death, more than a dozen biographers have covered his life, replacing the popular press’s snapshots with deeply researched tomes that depict a serious and dedicated writer at work. The other major Beat writers—Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William Burroughs, who all died in the past decade—have likewise had their lives recorded by biographers. References to the Beat writers in pop- ular songs, movies, and television shows constitute a further tribute to their cultural relevance and to the popularity they http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Contemporary Literature University of Wisconsin Press

Beat Generation Literary Criticism

Theado, Matt, --
Contemporary Literature , Volume 45 (4) – Feb 8, 2005
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Publisher
University of Wisconsin Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin.
ISSN
1548-9949

Abstract

MA TT THEADO Kostas Myrsiades, ed., The Beat Generation: Critical Essays. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. x + 352 pp. $29.95. Jennie Skerl, ed., Reconstructing the Beats. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004. 241 pp. $24.95. he Beat generation of writers sought literary achieve- ment, but contemporary fashion, entertainment, and opinion columnists granted them much more notice than did literary critics. When Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road (1957) and the unwitting Daddy of the Beatniks, died in 1969 with only one of his twenty-some books in print, the Beat gen- eration seemed destined to fade away, maybe to be remembered primarily as precursors to the politically engaged hippie move- ment. Time has proven otherwise. In the thirty years following Kerouac’s death, more than a dozen biographers have covered his life, replacing the popular press’s snapshots with deeply researched tomes that depict a serious and dedicated writer at work. The other major Beat writers—Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William Burroughs, who all died in the past decade—have likewise had their lives recorded by biographers. References to the Beat writers in pop- ular songs, movies, and television shows constitute a further tribute to their cultural relevance and to the popularity they

Journal

Contemporary Literature – University of Wisconsin Press

Published: Feb 8, 2005

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