How We Understand the Beats

The book compares the reception of the Beat Generation authors in the United States and the Czech lands in two different time periods: in the 1950s and 1960s of the 20th century and then from 1990s until today. While the works of the Beat Generation authors remained the same, the contexts of the Beat publications could not have been more different: American critics frequently reduced the works of the Beats to a juvenile promotion of sex, drugs, and even violence; for Czechoslovak readers, the works of the Beats sharply contrasted with the official literature which followed the doctrine of socialist realism. Therefore, this study comments on how different contexts shape the readers’ approaches to a literary text and their author, which then in turn help transform said text into a different work of art.