Literature Glossary
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Beat Movement
Definition:
The Beat Movement (or Beat Generation) started in the 1950s. If the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the '50s is squeaky-clean suburban life—you know, Mom vacuuming with her heels on—think again. The Beats challenged the establishment and its materialism, instead embracing sex, drugs, and jazz.
The Beat Movement arrived hot on the heels of World War II, when conformity was all the rage. The Beats essentially gave conformity the literary middle finger by writing literature that was bold in its expression of sexuality and social equality and blunt in its criticism of consumer culture and prudishness. Oh, and fueled by mountains and mountains of drugs.
These weren't your Great Aunt Esther's stories and poems, and the mainstream reacted about the way you'd expect. It dismissed Beat literature as pornography or nothing more than an attention grab, and writers of the Beat Generation were often targets of censorship and obscenity trials. (Occasionally, they were the subjects of murder charges, too.)
The Beat Movement ended in 1962. Ultimately, it wasn't a huge movement—key members like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg were too busy getting high and effecting change to write a ton of books—but it was hugely influential.
From sexual liberation to Eastern religion to environmentalism, the Beats took on topics nobody else was talking about. And they did so in a bare, straightforward manner that many readers, especially younger ones, found exhilarating.
Interested in tapping your brain to the Beat? Check out Shmoop's guide to Beat Literature.