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Writing Lessons From the Beat Generation
The authors and poets of the 1950s post-war Beat Generation viewed themselves as beaten and out of sync with society. ‘Beat’ also meant beatific as in the Beatitudes of Jesus as recounted in the Sermon on the Mount. Writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg viewed writing as sacred and holy. Creativity was a way of living, a means to diminish the pain of human suffering.
John Clellon Holmes 1952 novel Go was considered the first Beat novel. He said, “unlike the Lost Generation, which was occupied by the loss of faith, the Beat Generation is occupied with the need for it.” Poet Gary Snyder studied Zen at a Buddhist temple in Japan. Jack Kerouac incorporated Zen teachings in his novel Dharma Bums. Allen Ginsberg wrote poetry inspired by the Zen Koan “What is the face you had before you were born?”
Unlike the traditional “writing is re-writing” approach, Beats believed in a “first thought, best thought” philosophy. This inspired Truman Capote’s famous critique of Kerouac, “That’s not writing, it’s typing.” Kerouac did not outline his work. Nor did he use typing paper. He inserted a scroll into his 1930s Underwood and frenetically typed manuscripts under the influence of Benzedrine. To Kerouac, writing was closer to jazz music than literature.
Kerouac was a proponent of the Surrealist technique automatic writing. He adhered…