The Beat generation

Thèmes abordés

Beat generation popular culture

Résumé du document

The "Beatnik" generation, born in the 50s, has contributed in creating historical events such as May 68. It was a movement, which pretended to help people to get out of their cultural narrow-minded vision.

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life."

The term "beat" has its foundations in several cultural elements, but is widely attributed to author Jack Kerouac, widely known as the creator of the beat movement, even if he had regret about the other uses people gave to this word, including the media which turned it against the movement. In his first use of this word in 1948, in a conversation with the author John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac was defining his group of friends, a group of multiple authors. These people played a prominent role for the cultural influence they had on media, politics, and people think that nowadays we must deal with their text if we want to illustrate what the "Beat Spirit" was.

In this paper, we will compare this thinking of popular culture with Fiske's vision of popular culture, looking beyond capitalism and consumption society, and leading to a vision of capitalism and domination as a power for the mass.

Extraits

[...] New York : McGraw-Hill, c1976. Kerouac, J., (1991) On the road. Penguin Books Edition. [...]

[...] or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.” Is the Beat spirit, with the releasing way of approaching popular culture, in an utopist vision, still suiting the actual mass? REFERENCES Encyclopédie de l'Agora, (2006) Dossier: Beat Generation [Online] Encyclopédie de l'Agora [Accessed 3 December 2009]. Available at: Fiske, J., (1991), Reading the Popular. Routledge London. Fiske, J., (1991), Understanding the Popular. Routledge London. Kerouac, J., (1991) On the road. Penguin Books Edition. [...]

[...] As mentioned above, music had a strong influence on Beats writings. Finding their soul on years of slavery and suffering from the black people, jazz, bebop and rhythm blues were heightened feelings which teaching people to not forget what happened and to live on consequences. Beat's philosophy was to live intensively confronting each time yourself to your certainties by experiencing life itself, and not only doing theories about it. Beat like “beatification”, using their thinking as a religion, most of Beats were believers. [...]

[...] It was a movement, which pretends to help people to get out of their cultural narrow-minded vision. hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”(Kerouac ROMnibus, November 1951) The term has his foundations in several cultural elements, but is widely attributed to author Jack Kerouac, widely known as the creator of the beat movement, even if he had regret about the other uses people gave to this word, including the media which turned it against the movement. [...]

[...] He is also the general editor of the journal Cultural Studies. From this last point of his biography, we can already notice a different aspect of his life that have might influenced his analysis of popular culture: he knows both aspects of the publishing circle. It can have two different consequences: he might have known less issue to publish his writing thanks to this status, plus even if he criticizes capitalism he is showing it has a force, and not a weakness such as the Beats. [...]