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Hipterism In Harlem

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In essence, ,,the 6 Gallery readings reveal how Beat and associated artists and audiences also tapped into this residual, insubordinate, and positive sense of jazz and expressed it through their art and lives.” (Whaley, 2004, p. 27) ,,The reading of Howl amplified vibrations sounding back to the jazz of renaissance Harlem, an era in which blues and jazz poets found themselves when much of the high culture’s generation.” (Whaley, 2004, p. 24)
Besides the jazz and bebop music, the generation of “crazy, no-good kids” (Russel, 2002, p. 16), appeared to be influenced in style and fashion as well. The style was noticed as riotous hipsterism or the anti-patriotist zoot suits. According to Kerouac, who sympathized with the hipsters, the Beat generation …show more content…

Derived from the slang word hip or hep, meaning “to know” or “to be aware, originally involved jazz musicians and their fans and followers”, hipsters form a subculture, ,,(black and white) who cultivated a distinctive style of dress, appearance, language, and behaviour.” (Stephenson, 2009, p. 5) Centred upon the jazz experience, hipsterism represented an opposition to the conventional puritanical attitude toward sexuality and drugs. ,, Hipsterism attracted and influenced the avant-garde and bohemian while it continued to attract followers from its traditional social groups. By the middle and late forties, hipsterism constituted a sort of cultural underground throughout the United States with international affiliations. The Beats assumed the role of literary advocates for this subculture, embracing and, at the same time, interpreting and transforming it.” (Stephenson, 2009, p. …show more content…

The literature of the Beatniks was written in a manner less to be read than heard. The breakthrough for the Beatniks represented the 6 Gallery readings in San Francisco. San Francisco was open to the Beat generation. Having presented the Ginsberg´s “Howl” protest poem, the Beatnik avant-garde group modelled into the ,,controversial symbols of a new generation” (Whaley, 2004, p. 10). Howl caused a sensation but was strictly denied as nonacceptable for the former society to hear and led to the court. Slovak publicist and author of many volumes of authentic dialogues with Slovak, Czech, European and American writers, interviewed Allen Ginsberg with questions concerning the Beat generation philosophy, formation of his poems Howl or Kadish, his teachers, writers or poets who inspired him, likewise his memories about visiting Prague. According to the poem Howl, Ginsberg interprets the poem as the expression of a real howl, as a reaction to ostensibly irresolvable, for him unbearable circumstances. Considering the position of literature, Ginsberg adds: ,,I was looking for the way how to release both my feelings of pain and helplessness, simultaneously to find a way how to shock but not weaken the power of a message. For a part of American society, literature is a redundant

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P.7 Title TBD From the context packed mellow bars of To Pimp a Butterfly and the Hip-Hop revolution, to the smooth beat of the Harlem Renaissance, music is an integral part of our society and artistic expression; and as anything important, comes under extreme scrutiny and criticism without fail. From mellow and opinionated talking points, to clinical and objective think tanks, music criticism is a polarizing, controversial, and at times utterly baffling genre. You can read about the validity of “bro country” as a serious art style, or the systemic racism and violence that black communities face every day. You can read about how it affects one on an emotional level, and how it affects one’s thinking and rational processes.

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During the Roaring Twenties and before The Great Depression, the span between 1918 to 1929 created a new artistic explosion of African-American Arts. This explosion was called The Harlem Renaissance due to the fact that it was took place in Harlem, New York. It can be also known as the New Negro Movement named after an excerpt by Alain Locke. Not only did this movement influence the arts, but also the expression of cultural and social experiences. “In a few short years it created a flowering of black talent that has left an ineradicable cultural legacy.”

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The Beat Generation, according to Wikipedia, was a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. Wikipedia also states, central elements of the Beat culture were rejection of standard narrative values, the spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

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This term was used to describe Caucasian people who enjoyed the jazz music of the 1920s. Jazz music initially was adjusted to its Caucasian listeners, but as these musicians became more comfortable with their audience, they began to play music for themselves, which included lyrics that were controversial at the time. It was at this time, in the 1940s, that the word 'hipster', derived from the word 'hip', began to be used. At this time, it still meant a Caucasian who listened to jazz, but it took on a new meaning because jazz had become so controversial. This is linked to the civil rights movement because it united African Americans and Caucasians.

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"Howl" is without doubt Ginsberg’s best poem, and it is “associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation”(Savage, B.). “Howl” was published in 1956, in “Howl and Other Poetry”, and it instantly became famous. All copies were seized by the authorities, since the book was considered as offensive, especially because of this particular line: “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy”. Fortunately, a year later, a court ruled in favor of the author, and Ferlinghetti, publisher of Ginsberg’s book, who was charged and arrested, noted that: “it is not the poet but what he observes which is revealed as offensive”(ACLU). Allen Ginsberg was raised by his mentally sick mother, who took him to the gatherings of radical left party.

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If swing and bebop were movie characters, swing would be the energetic, organized sibling who gets voted for prom queen, while bebop would be the defiant younger sibling who hangs out with the wrong crowd after school. Swing became so formulaic and predictable that artists needed a new creative outlet for their emotions. This is how bebop emerged, as a criticism and rebellion “against the populist trappings of swing music” (Gioia, 187). In the 1940’s bebop matured as a style in New York City, where influential artists such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis mastered their craft while playing at locations such as Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, 52nd Street, and San Juan Hill. New York City became a hub for African-American artistic culture starting back in the 20’s with the Harlem Renaissance.

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Poet Allen Ginsburg was born in New Jersey to an English teacher. This fact likely influenced him as did Walt Whitman, jazz music and drugs. Ginsburg attended college at Columbia University. Here he created a team of writers that later contributed to the beat movement. This movement was characterized by freedom and breaking away from mainstream life, influences include: drugs, jazz, sexuality and eastern religion.

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