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Literary History(a) Cultural Rebels—Writers of the Beat Generation (a) Cultural Rebels—Writers of the Beat Generation Overview Writer Jack Kerouac saw that young people were rejecting conformity and wanted something different. This trend was captured in one word: Beat. Some say the Beat Generation represented a “tired and beaten down” generation. Three writers—Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg—inspired a whole generation of Beat writers, artists, and poets as well as the American counterculture of the 1960s. Beat writers were disillusioned by materialism and conformity. They wrote boldly of topics considered taboo in society and were unafraid to speak out against the mainstream. Their works were censored, banned, or, as in the case of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, impounded. Howl was not only criticized for its vivid portrayal of a horrific American society, it was considered obscene by U.S. Customs, and City Lights went to trial for publishing and selling it. These writers attracted a huge following, and soon many other writers appeared on the scene. Writers Diane Di Prima, Anne Waldman, Gary Snyder, and Gregory Corso all flocked to cities such as New York and San Francisco where Beat culture flourished. One of the most famous novels to emerge from the Beat writers is On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac used a literary device called roman á clef, which depicts actual people and events in a novel but uses different names. On the Road details Kerouac’s cross-country road trip and was a testament to his adventurous, free-spirited attitude and sympathy for the common man. Beat writers also were inspired by bebop jazz. When bebop appeared on the scene, its scattered rhythms and long improvisations turned many off. People were used to dancing to swing jazz music, and bebop was meant for listening, not dancing. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were two bebop jazz masters. The Beat Generation’s goal was to push people’s limits and introduce new ideas and literary forms to what they felt was a stodgy, repressed society. Bibliography The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin, 1992. A collection of excerpts and essays on the major prose and poets of the Beat Generation. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1956. The volume of poetry by Allen Ginsberg that broke many social taboos and was impounded by the authorities for being obscene. Naked Lunch. New York: Grove Press, 1992. William S. Burroughs’s horrifying, fragmented, satiric vision of society. Memoirs of a Beatnik. New York: Penguin, 1998. This is writer Diane Di Prima’s account of her years living in New York City during the rise of the Beat Generation as a female in a male-dominated culture. Web links The Source Overview Eugene O’Neill was one of the first American writers to explore intense, personal topics for the stage during this time. Like the Modernists, O’Neill’s subject matter was about the darker side of life—subjects not previously considered suitable for the stage. At the height of O’Neill’s career, more of his plays were produced and translated around the world than nearly any other American playwright’s. The only playwrights whose plays were produced more frequently during these years were William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. O’Neill’s most famous work, Long Day’s Journey into Night, was not produced until after his death. Two playwrights who made their marks after World War II were Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. Williams was famous for his works The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. His characters were complex and tragic and suffered harsh circumstances in life. Arthur Miller was one of the most prolific playwrights on Broadway. His famous works included All My Sons,Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. Sharp social commentary runs throughout Miller’s plays. He died at the age of eighty-nine in 2005. African American and female playwrights have emerged in recent decades. August Wilson brought the African American experience to life with the plays The Piano Lesson and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Wilson was born to poor parents who shielded their six children from the harsh realities of their lives. Wilson aimed to bring these realities to life through his plays. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was the first drama produced on Broadway by an African American woman, in 1959. Female playwrights who made their mark in the 1970s and 1980s were Wendy Wasserstein, who spoke the truth about feminism and the baby boomers, and Beth Henley, a Southern regionalist whose works include the famous Crimes of the Heart. Another form of drama that emerged in the twentieth century was musical theater. A combination of opera and drama, musical theater boomed during World War II, when Americans were looking for an escape from reality. Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, and Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun are all classics from the 1930s and 1940s. The 1950s and 1960s brought Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner, TheMusic Man by Meredith Willson, and The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The late 1960s and early 1970s also brought rock opera to the stage and screen: Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, which sparked controversy by portraying the life of Jesus Christ through modern rock and dance; and Hair, which questioned the social issues of the day, including sexuality, racism, drug use, and morality. Neil Simon is a celebrated American playwright whose career began in musical theater and moved to drama. He had a string of hits on Broadway in the 1960s and 1970s, including Sweet Charity,The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park. Simon’s success as a commercial playwright continued in the 1980s and 1990s with Biloxi Blues and Lost in Yonkers. Bibliography Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1998. Arthur Miller’s 1949 story of Willy Loman, an American archetype of the underdog. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: Signet, 1986. The Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Tennessee Williams about Southern characters Blanche DuBois, her sister Stella, and Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski, who lead tortured lives. The Piano Lesson. New York: Plume, 1990. August Wilson’s story about an African American family that migrates to Pittsburgh from Mississippi in 1936. Ultimate Broadway. New York: Arista, 1998. A collection of hits from Broadway musicals, most of them recorded by the original casts. Hear selections from Oklahoma,Annie,Hair, and others. Ultimate Broadway II. New York: RCA, 2003. Original cast recordings from The Producers,ThePhantom of the Opera, Chicago, Cabaret, Les Misérables, and Rocky Horror Show. Web links An Electronic Eugene O’Neill Archive The Glass Curtain American Theatre: Musicals Log InThe resource you requested requires you to enter a username and password below: | ||
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