The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group
of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in
the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and
popularized by members of the Silent Generation in the 1950s, better known as
Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard
narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and
Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals
of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual
liberation and exploration.
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S.