A BEAT GENERATION AND MODERN
LITERATURE BOOK SOURCE
What It Is.
The Beat State is a group of politically unified people occupying a definite territory. It is a particular condition of mind or feeling. It can be status, rank, or position in life. It is a condition that may leave one abnormally tense, nervous, or perturbed. It’s also a paean to 50's college football – a phrase that still rings out on campuses in Iowa and Michigan. BEAT STATE!! Jack Kerouac played a little (Lou...) football too.
Where It Started.
November 1948, New York City. In a remark to John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac opined, “We are a beat generation.”
What It Meant.
“A man is a beat whenever he goes broke and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that continually from early youth. ” (From “This is the Beat Generation,” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 1952)
Kerouac stated so publicly. 
The “beat” is
not beaten, lost or necessarily weak. A “beat” is something that
“moves or throbs” - it is alive. In his 1959 Playboy Article, “The
Origins of the Beat Generation,” Jack elaborated, stating that the
basis of “beat” – its root – is actually beatitude, or “supreme
blessedness” or “exalted happiness.” And while Kerouac certainly
failed – for many reasons – at achieving this state over the long
haul, other writers, including Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, William
Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Alan Watts and Henry Miller (to name but
a few), were able to achieve the longevity and productivity one can
only have wished for Jack.