Includes bibliographical references (pages 437-440).
Contents:
Foreward / by Anne Waldman -- A definition of the Beat Generation / by Allen Ginsberg -- 1. Course overview -- 2. Kerouac's "Origins of the Beat Generation" -- 3. Reading list -- 4. Visions -- 5. Jazz, bebop, and music -- 6. Music, Kerouac, Wyse, and Newman -- 7. Times Square and the 1940s -- 8. Carr, Ginsberg, and Kerouac at Columbia -- 9. Kerouac, Columbia, and Vanity of Duluoz -- 10. Lucian Carr's influence on Kerouac -- 11. Kerouac and Vanity of Duluoz, part 2 -- 12. Meeting Burroughs and Ginsberg's suspension from Columbia -- 13. Kerouac and The Town and the City -- 14. Kerouac and Visions of Cody, part 1 -- 15. Kerouac, Cassady, and Visions of Cody, part 2 -- 16. Kerouac in old age -- 17. Burroughs's first writings and "Twilight's Last Gleamings" -- 18. Burroughs, Kerouac, and And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks -- 19. Burroughs, Joan Burroughs, and Junkie -- 20. Burroughs and Korzybski -- 21. Burroughs and the visual -- 22. Burroughs and The Yage Letters -- 23. Burroughs and Queer -- 24. Burroughs and Naked Lunch -- 25. Burroughs and the cut-up method -- 26. Burroughs and The Ticket That Exploded -- 27. Neal Cassady and As Ever -- 28. Kerouac and the "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" -- 29. Kerouac and On the Road -- 30. Kerouac and The Subterraneans -- 31. Jack Kerouac and fame -- 32. Kerouac, sketching, and method -- 33. Corso and The Vestal Lady on Brattle -- 34. Corso and Gasoline and Other Poems -- 35. Corso and The Birthday of Death -- 36. Corso and "Bomb" -- 37. Corso and "Power" -- 38. Corso and Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit -- 39. Ginsberg's early writings -- 40. Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams -- 41. Ginsberg and the "The Green Automobile" -- 42. Ginsberg and "Howl" -- 43. Ginsberg, "Howl," and Christopher Smart -- 44. Ginsberg and CeĢzanne -- 45. Ginsberg and the San Francisco renaissance -- 46. John Clellon Holmes -- 47. Peter Orlovsky -- 48. Carl Solomon -- 49. Kerouac's "Belief and Technique For Modern Prose" -- Works cited within the text -- Allen Ginsberg's reading list for "A Literary History of the Beat Generation.
Summary:
"In 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem "Howl" and Jack Kerouac' On the Road, Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation. Through this course, which he taught first at the Narope Institute in Colorado, and later at Brooklyn College, Ginsberg saw an opportunity to present a full history of Beat literature and to record his own stories and memories, ones that might otherwise be lost to history. the result was a deeply intimate, wonderfully digressive, but revelatory set of lectures, which form the basis of this book. Compiled and edited by renowned Beat scholar Bill Morgan, and with an introduction by Anne Waldeman, The Best Minds of My Generation provides the lectures in a curated form, revealing the Beats as Ginsberg knew them: friends, confidantes, literary mentors, and fellow revolutionaries."--Jacket flap.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.