in his 1802 preface to the Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth railed against the artificial poetic diction found in the sonnets and declared his intentions to write "in a selection of language really used by men"(qtd in Where the Arts live n. pag.). Wordsworth along with Emily Dickinson pioneered the free verse style of poetry, that pushed the boundaries of what the cannon considered to be poetry and laid the foundation for the artists who would emerge a century and a half later in the United States, who were referred to as the Beats.
The Beats were a group of artists and writers who rejected the martialism and consumerism of the age. The initial pioneers of the movement were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs. The phrase "Beat Generation" was invented by Jack Kerouac in a 1948 conversation with John Clellon Holmes. (Schumacher 173-188) This group of artists were centered around Columbia University in New York City and would go on to create the works that would define a generation.
Of these works, two would reach the greatest commercial success and epitomize the works of the beats: On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Howl by Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac's piece, a semi-autobiographical tale, depicting the travels and interactions of Kerouac and his friends. The book retells of the journeys of the group across the country for a period of three years. It includes anecdote about buses and hitchhiking which were all parallels of Kerouac's experiences. From the constant movement of an array of colorful characters, shifting landscapes, social dramas are created which embodied the ideals of the beat generation.(Kerouac, On the Road) On the Road would define a generation but Ginsberg's Howl would change the definition and understanding of poetry for all posterity. Yet the motivations for Ginsberg composing such a great work are of mere chance and as natural as breathing.
