The Cambridge Companion to the Beats

This Companion offers an in-depth overview of the Beat era, one of the most popular literary periods in America.

Steven Belletto (Edited by)

9781107184459, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 February 2017

332 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.58 kg

'This Companion locates an understanding of the Beats beyond the familiar, identifying a wide range of writers and approaches to writing which are associated with the term Beat. This factor alone makes the volume worthwhile for any reader looking to read beyond the 'canonical' Beat authors … As one would expect from a series as authoritative as the Cambridge Companions, every chapter is informed by up-to-date scholarship, written in an approachable style and is fully referenced.' Linda Kemp, Languages and Literature

The Cambridge Companion to the Beats offers an in-depth overview of one of the most innovative and popular literary periods in America, the Beat era. The Beats were a literary and cultural phenomenon originating in New York City in the 1940s that reached worldwide significance. Although its most well-known figures are Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, the Beat movement radiates out to encompass a rich diversity of figures and texts that merit further study. Consummate innovators, the Beats had a profound effect not only on the direction of American literature, but also on models of socio-political critique that would become more widespread in the 1960s and beyond. Bringing together the most influential Beat scholars writing today, this Companion provides a comprehensive exploration of the Beat movement, asking critical questions about its associated figures and arguing for their importance to postwar American letters.

Chronology
Introduction: the Beat half-century Steven Belletto
1. Were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs a generation? William Lawlor
2. Beatniks, hippies, yippies, feminists, and the ongoing American counterculture Jonah Raskin
3. Locating a Beat aesthetic Regina Weinreich
4. The Beats and literary history: myths and realities Nancy M. Grace
5. Allen Ginsberg and Beat poetry Erik Mortenson
6. Five ways of being Beat, circa 1958–9 Steven Belletto
7. Jack Kerouac and the Beat novel Kurt Hemmer
8. William S. Burroughs: Beating postmodernism Oliver Harris
9. Memory babes: Joyce Johnson and Beat memoir Brenda Knight
10. Beat writers and criticism Hilary Holladay
11. Beats and gender Ronna C. Johnson
12. Beats and sexuality Polina Mackay
13. The Beats and race A. Robert Lee
14. Ethnographies and networks: on Beat transnationalism Todd. F. Tietchen
15. Buddhism and the Beats John Whalen-Bridge
16. Beat as beatific: Gregory Corso's Christian poetics Kirby Olson
17. Jazz and the Beat Generation Michael Hrebeniak
18. Beats and visual culture David Sterritt
Further reading.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literature: history & criticism [DS]