Beat Generation
2
8.0
- noun
- /biːt ˌdʒɛnəˈreɪʃən/
- NSFW
:
Generación Beat
- Writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg are often regarded as the defining figures of the Beat Generation.
- writers of the Beat Generation
- poets of the Beat Generation
I mean, I just don't, I'm not too familiar with the Beat Generation.
- I mean, I just don't, I'm not too familiar with the Beat Generation.
Examples
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In poetry, however, as elsewhere, rebellion in the Fifties had a name almost as famous as that of Marion Brando or James Dean—the Beat Generation.
Academic text (2001) -
Burroughs himself never identified with the Beat Generation.
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What is "The Beat Generation"?
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# # You Beat Generation, # # you think you live as you choose.
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Experimenting with new forms of literature as well as drugs, the three friends formed the vanguard of a cultural phenomenon... that would come to be known as the Beat Generation.
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He was a lot more comfortable with the term than Kerouac and Burroughs were, incorporating Corso, Weiner, Huncke, and even Bob Creeley into his Literary History of the Beat Generation course that he taught at Naropa.
Blog text (3) -
The Beat Generation was known for its emphasis on spontaneous creativity and nonconformity.
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Many artists and writers from the Beat Generation rejected societal norms in favor of experimental lifestyles.
Synonyms
Young people in 1950s America who rejected normal values and liked jazz
A group of young people who share a style, music, or behaviour different from the wider culture
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a proper-name for a specific literary and cultural movement; while 'generation' (a group born in the same era) is transparent, 'Beat' here has a specialized, historically specific sense (Beat/beatnik tied to a subculture, jazz aesthetics and countercultural attitudes) that is not the ordinary meaning of 'beat'. A B1 learner who only knows the basic meanings of the constituents would not be able to infer the movement's cultural and historical associations, so the expression is opaque.
Etymology
Beat Generation may come from the word beat, which meant 'tired' or 'beaten down' and also the steady 'beat' of jazz music. One popular story says writers like Jack Kerouac used beat to show both their hard, worn lives and their love of jazz, so Beat Generation became the name for the group of young artists who rejected normal rules and wanted new, creative ways to live.