The Beat Generation: A Gale Critical Companion (Gale Critical Companions) - Hardcover

Zott, Lynn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787675695 ISBN 13: 9780787675691

Publisher: Gale, 2003

Synopsis

"The second title in the new Gale Critical Companion collection series focusing on important literary movements brings together the salient topics, representative works, and major writers of Beat literature. Volume one presents thematic chapters covering the Beat scene. Volume two and three consist of introductory articles to the lives, works, themes, and critical receptions of 28 quintessential writers. Designed for high school and college students, this companion gains its value from assembled articles that highlight primary and secondary materials and reprinted criticism on important writers and works of this generation."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.Provides insight into the authors, themes, and works that comprise Beat literature.

About this title

From Booklist:

The second title in the Gale Critical Companion Collection follows Harlem Renaissance [RBB Ap 15 03]. The series focuses on literary movements or themes and offers organized, annotated collections of reprinted criticism. Volume 1 of The Beat Generation covers "Topics": an overview, the East and West Coast scenes, publishing, and the Beats' influence on the performing and visual arts. Volumes 2 and 3 are devoted to people and contain entries on 29 major literary figures associated with the Beat movement. In all three volumes, entries follow the same formula. An introduction to the topic or author and list of representative works is followed by a selection of primary sources (reprinted essays, journal entries, poems, newspaper accounts, etc.). Next is a section of general secondary essays on the topic or author. In some cases, a section on specific aspects of the topic or critical essays on specific titles follow. Each entry concludes with a list of annotated further reading culled from monographs and periodicals. The material is accompanied by 40 to 50 black-and-white images or sidebar graphics per volume.

Present in each volume are a chronology of key events and three indexes: author, title, and subject. The author index has cross-references to pseudonyms and to the other, seemingly endless stream of titles in the Gale literature series. All of the featured authors are major figures covered in other Gale series, but an effort to make this series unique is evidenced by the fact that only 15 percent of the critical essays reprinted here have appeared previously in other Gale publications.

William Lawlor's The Beat Generation: A Bibliographic Teaching Guide (Scarecrow/Salem, 1998) mines similar territory but offers only annotated bibliographies on the main Beat topics and people and is mostly aimed at teachers. Unlike the Gale set, it includes audio and visual material and (now largely outdated) Internet sites. The Gale set does a good job of spotlighting seminal Beat authors like Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Ken Kesey. One wonders at the omission of peripheral people like Charles Bukowski and Larry Eigner from the subject index, even if they aren't expected to be featured authors. Still, it is extremely useful to have all of this diverse material on the Beat Generation in one place, and the set is recommended for academic, high-school, and public libraries. RBB
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About this edition

• Publisher: Gale
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0787675695
• ISBN 13: 9780787675691
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1500