Beat Generation

English

Alternative forms

• beat generation

Etymology

Often attributed to Herbert Huncke, from beat (“exhausted”), with Jack Kerouac later claiming it derived from beatific instead.

Proper noun

the Beat Generation

1. A group of countercultural American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their most important works are Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959).