The Portable Beat Reader - East Coast Beats and Jack Kerouac Summary & Analysis

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This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Portable Beat Reader.
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The Portable Beat Reader - East Coast Beats and Jack Kerouac Summary & Analysis

Various
This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Portable Beat Reader.
This section contains 1,374 words
(approx. 4 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Portable Beat Reader Study Guide

East Coast Beats and Jack Kerouac Summary

The book begins with a short introduction to the historical background of the Beat Generation written by editor Ann Charters. Charters writes that the Beat Generation started off as a very small literary movement in New York City, originally centered around Times Square. The Beats experiment with crime and drugs in an attempt to get outside of post-war American society, which the Beats see as fundamentally sick. The most important literary statement of the Beat Generation is Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," which renounces the cynicism of American intellectual life.

Charters begins the section on Jack Kerouac by giving some biographical information on Kerouac and explaining Kerouac's major works.

The excerpt from "On the Road" begins with Kerouac describing his first meeting with Neal Cassady known as Dean Moriarty in the book. Kerouac...

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This section contains 1,374 words
(approx. 4 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Portable Beat Reader Study Guide
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