What is it about?
Jack Kerouac's concept of being beat that was so central to the Beat Movement was influenced by his reading of Jack London's 1907 book The Road. In that book, London includes information from his 1894 diary now referred to as the Tramp Diary. Close examination of the Tramp Diary provides useful background for thinking about what Kerouac meant when he used the word "beat."
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Why is it important?
This essay contributes to scholarship exploring Jack London's influence on Jack Kerouac. It also provides a careful analysis of London's 1894 Tramp Diary and its contribution to his 1907 book The Road. London and Kerouac are both important contributors to literature of the road.
Perspectives
London and Kerouac viewed life on the road as a confrontation with stern reality and not an escape. They valued what Kerouac would call "beat" precisely because it arose from experience stripped of illusion.
Paul Crumbley
Utah State University
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This page is a summary of: Being Beat: The Stern Reality of London's Tramp Diary and Kerouac's Road, Studies in American Naturalism, January 2019, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/san.2019.0013.
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