The United States during the 1960’s was a time of massive change for the country. The President being shot and the war overseas are just a couple of the issues being dealt with by Americans, and people were overwhelmed with the then current status of the country, and out of this came several movements; no movement defined the Sixties quite like the counterculture movement. The “counterculture” movement in the 1960’s became a compilation of the groups in the United States fighting for their rights like those involved in the women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, and so on. Those involved with counterculture were primarily defined as “hippies”, essentially referring to someone who lives an alternative lifestyle with the hope of avoiding main-stream media, experimenting sexually, and actively putting down war efforts. Due to their neglect of mainstream media, be it music or literature, several new and experimental pieces of writing came as a result, and from this spawned the Beats. The Beats are a group of authors, and although were created slightly prior to the counterculture movement’s full swing, are often associated with the movement and its rhetoric. The Beats began as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, three men focused on new experiences, seeing new things, and taking pride in one’s self. And although Ginsberg seems to be the only one to name him personally, all three men represent a literary descending from Walt Whitman.
I plan on writing a scholarly article about the connection between the Beats and Walt Whitman. I plan on mostly using primary source (ie. their works) to make the connection, but I also want to bring in other scholars that have explored the issue in some capacity. I feel a personal connection with the ideas that the Beats and Whitman share, and I think my familiarity with authors like Ginsberg and Kerouac gives me a solid base of information to work with.
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