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Thanks to Larry Keenan's masterful photography, we are left with a visually potent view of the Beat Generation and beyond. Keenan's photo-documentation is necessary, for it captures many essential moments -- of Ginsberg, Whalen, Cassady, Corso, McClure, Dylan, and many others. Without Keenan's illustration of people and events that have already hooked us deeply, we would no doubt be struggling along empty-eyed, wondering where's the color, the depth, the light, and the angle of the Beats? We know their literature; we know something about their personal biographies. Yet equally (if not more) important is knowing what everything looked like. Keenan has provided us the images.
Larry Keenan - Beat Generation & Counter-Culture Photography Galleries
The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included experimentation with drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion , a rejection of materialism , and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being. Allen Ginsberg 's Howl ( 1956 ), William S. Burroughs 's Naked Lunch ( 1959 ) and Jack Kerouac 's On the Road ( 1957 ) are among the best known examples of Beat literature. [ 1 ] Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists , who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.

