Welcome to “The Beat Goes On” a website

dedicated to the study of Beat literature.

This website is the product of an independent

study done on the Beat Movement. What you

will find as you click around is a suggested

syllabus surveying the Beat Movement, helpful

resources, and a blog that functions as a

reading response to the required texts.

 

So why the Beats?  For me, I have always been

fascinated with the authors from this post WWII time. I read Kerouac , Burroughs, and Ginsberg out of my own personal interest. Their stories were unlike anything I had ever read before. The wild drunkenness, drug use, sex, travel, outlandish characters and scenarios always captivated me.

 

After reading And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks in the summer of 2014, I became interested in the authors and their work on a different level. I  never considered to look deeper past the pure entertainment the literature provided me into what might really be going on in these texts.

 

I think often the Beats are labelled “cool” because of the favorable culture elements of  sex, drugs, and violence found in their work, but the beats represent a lifestyle of living free from the limitations of society. They push themselves to the outskirts in search of something more. So instead of carrying around a copy of On The Road in my back pocket for style and appeal, I decided to study what it was that created and pushed these authors to produce one of the most interesting movements in literature.