John Clellon Holmes, This Is the Beat Generation

Jimmy Fazzino (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication Nov 1952

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Essay / Lecture (literary)

Resources

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John Clellon Holmes’s essay “This Is the Beat Generation” is credited with introducing the public to that term when it appeared in the Sunday edition of the

New York Times

on November 16, 1952. The twenty-six-year-old Holmes had just published his first novel,

—widely regarded as the first “beat” novel—when he was commissioned by the

Times

to contribute an article describing the new cultural phenomenon he had written about in the novel. The result is but the first of many such accounts offered by Holmes and his peers, yet the 1952

Times

article retains its status as an uniquely eloquent and prescient portrait and defense of the Beat Generation.

“This Is the Beat Generation” arrives at a curious moment on the beat timeline. It predates canonical texts like Jack

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1250 words

Citation: Fazzino, Jimmy. "This Is the Beat Generation". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 September 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33200, accessed 31 October 2024.]

John Clellon Holmes, This Is the Beat Generation

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