little bit about the Beat Movement, Allen Ginsberg's role in it, and some criticism. The "Beats" were members of a literary protest that was and artistic movement in the mid 1950's. During this period, a small clique of writers declared themselves, "disaffected nonconformists and were elevated by the media to the status of antiheroes," (Layman 34). They wanted to close the gap between life and art. To try to achieve their aspirations, they began by searching for "raw experiences." They saw, learned and wrote, for themselves, their own feelings of what the country was.Individualism was the characteristic held in the highest regard by all of the Beats. It was their belief that everyone should patronize their own ability and freedom to find the truest part of themselves and then to be that person.Among the initiators of the Beat Generation genre, Allen Ginsberg was considered the only genuine beatnik," and was the only one to deal with the psychology of the Vietnam War in real life as will as in his writing. "Stylistically, he was the connection between Kerouac's guts, Burrough's brains, the one-man band before Dylan, and the Gay Movement announcing street prophet," ("Jack Kerouac . . ." 3).Ginsberg presents his life's works as a personal epic of consciousness, a life-long poem including history, wherein things are symbols of themselves. His journals are the seedbed of his writing. Most of his poems are lifted from them. In the journals his characteristic lines fill up the page from margin to margin, but the line is whenever the mind breaks, and therefore can be one work or a long paragraph. His poems spill over into prose under the impact of powerful emotion. (Lee)Ginsberg was trying, with very little success, to find a way of making poems from the kind of experiences he, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs shared. His experiences and travel were the main inspiration for most of his life works.Ginsberg presents not only the ...
