Editing Beat Generation (section)

==Culture and influences==
===Sexuality===
One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation,<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Type Writer Is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation|last=Morgan|first=Bill|publisher=Counterpoint|year=2011|location=Berkeley, CA}}</ref> which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Prothero|first=Stephen|year=1991|title=On the Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest|journal=The Harvard Theological Review|volume=84|issue=2|pages=205–222|doi=10.1017/S0017816000008166|s2cid=162913767 }}</ref> Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Hemmer|editor-first=Kurt|title=Encyclopedia of Beat Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediabeat00hemm|url-access=limited|publisher=[[Facts On File, Inc.]]|date=2007|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediabeat00hemm/page/n123 111]|isbn=978-0-8160-4297-5|quote=These early books, too, are windows into the poet's efforts to find a place for his homosexual identity in the repressive pre-Stonewall United States.}}</ref> and Burroughs<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Hemmer|editor-first=Kurt|title=Encyclopedia of Beat Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediabeat00hemm|url-access=limited|publisher=Facts On File, Inc.|date=2007|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediabeat00hemm/page/n44 32]|isbn=978-0-8160-4297-5|quote=And then, before the end of the decade, Burroughs had gone—leaving cold-war America to escape his criminalization as a homosexual and drug addict, to begin 25 years of expatriation.}}</ref>). However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair (''[[The Subterraneans]]''), and group sex (''[[The Dharma Bums]]''). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominately [[homosociality|homosocial]].<ref name="blogspot2">{{Cite web|url=http://notsogentlereader.blogspot.com/2009/07/hetero-and-homo-social-relationships-in.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106174932/http://notsogentlereader.blogspot.com/2009/07/hetero-and-homo-social-relationships-in.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 6, 2013|title=Hetero- and Homo-Social Relationships in Jack Kerouac's On the Road|work=Not-So-Gentle Reader blog|access-date=2014-11-30|date=July 23, 2009}}</ref>

===Drug use===
The original members of the Beat Generation used several different drugs, including alcohol, [[cannabis (drug)|marijuana]], [[Amphetamine|benzedrine]], [[morphine]], and later [[psychedelic drug]]s such as [[peyote]], [[ayahuasca]], and [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/drugs-literature-poetry_b_1011124.html|title=The Great Drug-Induced Poems|last=Lundberg|first=John|date=2011-10-16|website=Huffington Post|access-date=2017-09-12}}</ref> They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects. Their drug use was broadly inspired by intellectual interest, and many Beat writers thought that their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight, or productivity.<ref>Allen Ginsberg, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7jEwBwAAQBAJ&dq=allen+ginsberg+lsd+every+man+woman+child&pg=PT219 ''The Essential Ginsberg''], Penguin UK, 2015.</ref> The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.beatdom.com/substance-use/|title=Substance Use|date=2010-09-14|work=Beatdom|access-date=2017-09-12}}</ref>

===Romanticism===
[[Gregory Corso]] considered English Romantic poet [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]] a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in the [[Protestant Cemetery, Rome]]. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem ''[[Adonaïs|Adonais]]'' at the beginning of his poem ''[[Kaddish (poem)|Kaddish]],'' and cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. [[Michael McClure]] compared Ginsberg's ''[[Howl (poem)|Howl]]'' to Shelley's breakthrough poem ''[[Queen Mab (poem)|Queen Mab]].''<ref>McClure, Michael. ''Scratching the Beat Surface''.</ref>

Ginsberg's main Romantic influence was [[William Blake]],<ref>"Throughout these interviews [in ''Spontaneous Mind''] Ginsberg returns to his high praise of William Blake and Walt Whitman. Ginsberg obviously loves Blake the visionary and Whitman the democratic sensualist, and indeed Ginsberg's literary personality can be construed as a union of these forces." Edmund White, ''Arts and letters'' (2004), p. 104, {{ISBN|1-57344-195-3}}, {{ISBN|978-1-57344-195-7}}.</ref> and studied him throughout his life. Blake was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948.<ref>"Ginsberg's intense relationship with Blake can be traced to a seemingly mystical experience he had during the summer of 1948." ''ibid'', p. 104.</ref> Romantic poet [[John Keats]] was also cited as an influence.{{Citation needed|date= February 2018}}

===Jazz===
Writers of the Beat Generation were heavily influenced by [[jazz]] artists like [[Billie Holiday]] and the stories told through Jazz music. Writers like [[Jack Kerouac]] (''On the Road''), Bob Kaufman ("Round About Midnight," "Jazz Chick," and "O-Jazz-O"), and [[Frank O'Hara]] ("The Day Lady Died") incorporated the emotions they felt toward jazz. They used their pieces to discuss feelings, people, and objects they associate with jazz music, as well as life experiences that reminded them of this style of music. Kaufman's pieces listed above "were intended to be freely improvisational when read with Jazz accompaniment" (Charters 327). He and other writers found inspiration in this genre and allowed it to help fuel the Beat movement.

===Early American sources===
The Beats were inspired by early American figures in the [[Transcendentalism|transcendentalist]] movement, such as [[Henry David Thoreau]], [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[Herman Melville]] and especially [[Walt Whitman]], who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, "[[A Supermarket in California]]". [[Edgar Allan Poe]] was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw [[Emily Dickinson]] as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel ''[[You Can't Win (book)|You Can't Win]]'' by outlaw author [[Jack Black (author)|Jack Black]] was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs.<ref>Ted Morgan, ''Literary Outlaw'' (1988), p.36-37 of trade paper edition, "When Billy [William Burroughs] was thirteen, he came across a book that would have an enormous impact on his life and work. Written by someone calling himself Jack Black, ''You Can't Win'' was the memoir of a professional thief and drug addict."</ref>

===French surrealism===
In many ways, [[Surrealism]] was still considered a vital movement in the 1950s. [[Carl Solomon]] introduced the work of French author [[Antonin Artaud]] to Ginsberg, and the poetry of [[André Breton]] had direct influence on Ginsberg's poem ''[[Kaddish (poem)|Kaddish]].''{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}} Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, [[John Ashbery]] and [[Ron Padgett]] translated French poetry. Second-generation Beat [[Ted Joans]] was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton.<ref>According to William Lawlor: "André Breton, the founder of surrealism and Joans's {{Sic}} mentor and friend, famously called Joans the 'only Afro-American surrealist' (qtd. by James Miller in _Dictionary of Literary Biography_ 16: 268)", p. 159, ''Beat culture: lifestyles, icons, and impact'', ABC-CLIO, 2005, {{ISBN|1-85109-400-8}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85109-400-4}}. Ted Joans said, "The late André Breton the founder of surrealism said that I was the only Afro-American surrealist and welcomed me to the exclusive surrealist group in Paris", p. 102, ''For Malcolm: poems on the life and the death of Malcolm X'', Dudley Randall and Margaret G. Burroughs, eds, Broadside Press, Detroit, 1967. There is some question about how familiar Breton was with Afro-American literature: "If it is true that the late André Breton, a founder of the surrealist movement, considered Ted Joans the only Afro-American surrealist, he had not read Kaufman; at any rate, Breton had much to learn about Afro-American poetry." Bernard W. Bell, "The Debt to Black Music", ''Black World/Negro Digest'' March 1973, p. 86.</ref>

[[Philip Lamantia]] introduced Surrealist poetry to the original Beats.<ref>Allen Ginsberg commented: "His interest in techniques of surreal composition notoriously antedates mine and surpasses my practice ... I authoritatively declare Lamantia an American original, soothsayer even as Poe, genius in the language of Whitman, native companion and teacher to myself." Allen Ginsberg, Bill Morgan, ''Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952–1995'', p. 442, "Philip Lamantia, Lamantia As Forerunner", HarperCollins, 2001, {{ISBN|9780060930813}}.</ref> The poetry of [[Gregory Corso]] and [[Bob Kaufman]] shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random juxtaposition of dissociated images, and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in Ginsberg's poetry. As the legend goes, when meeting French Surrealist [[Marcel Duchamp]], Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie.<ref name="Miles, Ginsberg">Miles (2001) ''Ginsberg''.</ref>{{Page needed|date=September 2010}} Other influential French poets for the Beats were [[Guillaume Apollinaire]], [[Arthur Rimbaud]] and [[Charles Baudelaire]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}

===Modernism===
[[Gertrude Stein]] was the subject of a book-length study by [[Lew Welch]]. Admitted influences for Kerouac include [[Marcel Proust]], [[Ernest Hemingway]] and [[Thomas Wolfe]].<ref>"In 'Author's Introduction,' which is included in ''Lonesome Traveler'' (1960), Kerouac ... goes on to mention Jack London, William Saroyan, and Ernest Hemingway as early influences and mentions Thomas Wolfe as a subsequent influence." William Lawlor, ''Beat culture: lifestyles, icons, and impact'', 2005, {{ISBN|1-85109-400-8}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85109-400-4}} p. 153. "And if one considers The Legend of Dulouz, one must acknowledge the influence of Marcel Proust. Like Proust, Kerouac makes his powerful memory the source of much of his writing and again like Proust, Kerouac envisions his life's literary output as one great book." Lawlor, p. 154.</ref>

===Buddhism and Daoism===
Gary Snyder defined wild as "whose order has grown from within and is maintained by the force of consensus and custom rather than explicit legislation". "The wild is not brute savagery, but a healthy balance, a self-regulating system.". Snyder attributed wild to [[Buddhism]] and [[Daoism]], the interests of some Beats. "Snyder's synthesis uses Buddhist thought to encourage American social activism, relying on both the concept of impermanence and the classically American imperative toward freedom."<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Garton-Gundling |first1=Kyle |title=Beat Buddhism and American freedom. |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Beat+Buddhism+and+American+freedom.-a0492538902 |website=thefreelibrary.com |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |access-date=11 May 2019 |archive-date=December 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201226061806/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Beat+Buddhism+and+American+freedom.-a0492538902 |url-status=dead }}</ref>