To view prices and purchase online, please login or create an account now.



The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Allen Ginsberg
Edited by Bill Morgan
SeriesPenguin Modern Classics
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:496
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreLiterary essays
Literary studies - from c 1900 -
ISBN/Barcode 9780141399010
ClassificationsDewey:810.90054
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publication Date 5 April 2018
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

An astonishing and unique historical record of the Beat Generation, from one of its pre-eminent figures In 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem 'Howl' and Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation. In The Best Minds of My Generation - a compilation of lectures from the course, expertly edited by renowned Beats scholar, Bill Morgan - Ginsberg gives us the convoluted origin story of the 'Beat' idea. Amongst anecdotes of meeting Kerouac, Burroughs and other figures for the first time, Ginsberg elucidates the importance of music, and particularly jazz rhythms, to Beat writing, discusses their many influences - literary, pharmaceutical and spiritual - and paints a portrait of a group who were leading a literary revolution. A unique document that works both as historical record and unconventional memoir, The Best Minds of My Generation is a vivid, personal and eye-opening look at one of the most important literary movements of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was an American poet, best known for his iconic Howl, one of the most widely read and translated poems of the century, for celebrating his friends of the Beat Generation and for attacking what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in the United States at the time. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and won the National Book Award for The Fall of America.