he aligned it with the New American Poetry
(Llano, 2009). Kerouac defined beat as
“sympathetic” or as something done which he
understood as “beatitude”. He conjures up an
image of “beat generation” aligned to simple
figures from 1940’s culture, he states “It goes back
to the inky ditties of old cartoons (Krazy
Kat…Count Dracula)” (Llano, 2009). Similarly,
Ginsberg states “Howl (was)…’mind running
along…like Charlie Chaplin’s walk” (Hoover,
1994, p.635).
To Kerouac the beat generation was essentially
a religious generation. Gary Snyder once jibed
that the beat generation didn’t in fact exist,
consisting of between 3 and 4 people and this
didn’t make up a generation. According to Alfred
Kazin they were initially “a family of friends”. To
Ted Morgan (William Burroughs’s biographer)
they were a “Community of outlaws” (Charters,
1992). To others they were the product of the
small press or publications e.g. Creeley at Black
Mountain review or Ferlinghetti at City lights
press
8