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JACK KEROUAC - Coggle Diagram
JACK KEROUAC
BEATNIKS
With the popularity of the Beat literature arose a new culture: THE BEATNIKS. It was a journalist of San Francisco who created the term. The -nik suffix was borrowed from "Sputnik" the first artificial earth satellite that had been launched by the Soviet Uninion
They ived in dirty appartments, rejecting conformity. They often Hich-hicked across the country along Route 66. They acted on impulse: did whatever they want, expLored nudity and sexuality and they tried to expand their world using hallucinogenic drugs and alcohol
They wore their hair long, grew beards, worn-out jeans, old t-shirts and sandals.
They promote escapism and created a "underground culture" which included jazz, poetry and the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Their reference place was City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
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ON THE ROAD (1957)
The story of a friendship and its in the form of a diary in which Kerouac writes ideas and thoughts during his journey across North America with his friend Cassady
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It's only on the road that Moriarty and Sal live wilde and free. The music and the people they meet during their journey are described in details
The style is spontaneous and episodic. For Kerouac writing meant expressing whatever came into one's mind: an idea, a scene a though.. The language used is hip talk
LIFE
He was born in Massachusetts in 1922 and he was the son of a French- Canadian immigrants. From the experience of his brother's death and the Catholic faith of his childhood he developed a spiritual dimension that would last throughout his life.
Then he moved to New York and enroled Columbia University. In Nwe York he met many poets like Neal Cassady and this circle became the centre of the Beat Movement
The influence of Cassady on VìKerouac was enormous due to his total lack of inhibitions, his enthusiasm and a sort of wild excitement.
After the war, Kerouac with Cassady started his first hitch-hiking journey across America which inspired his best-known novel On the Road where he reported all that happened in that journey
It was pubblished in 1957 and this year marked the beginning of Krouac's success: the book became a huge best seller and "the Bible" of the Beat Generation.
But this popularity frighten the riter who started to lead a solitary life and became more and more addicted to alcohol and drugs
He became less famous in the last years of his life, but alcholism deteriorated his health: in 1969 he died at the age of 47 due to an internal bleeding caused by cirrhosis of the liver
Kerouac's book became a model for young people in college campuses: they started to imitate him, hitch-hicking around the country
A NEW LANGUAGE
Kerouac wrote about what he felt and thought during a particular experience in his life, which sometimes concided with the moment of writing. They used the so-caled hip-talk (so street language) which was vital, alive, spontaneus, authentic and in contrast with the conventional language wiìhich was dull, boring and inappropriate in this case