Abstract

After World War II, a new cultural and literary movement in America staked its claim on the nation’s consciousness and reached a climax in 1960s. People call this school of literature the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation has a profound and persistent influence on the history of literature. However, in the beginning, just like truth is always held in few people’s hands, it was not accepted by the critics. Even now, people also have mixed feelings about it. In term of Beat Generation, scholars at home and abroad have made rather deep research from different aspects, for example, A Study on the Different Ways of Escaping from Reality between the Beat Generation and the Lost Generation by Jiang Yingbiao, An Analysis on the Beat Generation with Freud’s Personality Structure Theory by Wang Xia, and etc. While it is apparent that research on the ideological origin of the Beat Generation has seldom been involved, that is to say, this theme is worthy of further studying.

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was considered as one of the greatest works of Beat Generation. Once published, On the Road immediately attracted thousands of American college students and teenagers, almost everyone had a copy, serving as a textbook of life for young Beat Generation. Therefore, a further study on On the Road can help people better understanding the behaviour and ideological origin of the Beat Generation. And hence this thesis will be based on the work On the Road, and combine with contemporary social background, its author Jack Kerouac and other representative writers’ works and life, Hippie, Buddhism, Existentialism philosophy to trace to its source, so as to analyze the ideological origin of the Beat Generation.

Key words: the Beat Generation, ideological origin, On the Road, Hippie, Zen Buddhism, Existentialism

摘        要

“垮掉的一代”是第二次世界大战后美国出现的第一个现代派文学流派，“二战”后开始出现，五六十年代达到高潮。它的影响可以说是历久弥香。但是，就如同真理总掌握在少数人手中一样，“垮掉的一代”出现之初并不被评论界所接受。直到现在，人们对它的评价都是褒贬兼有之。对于“垮掉的一代”，国内外学者们已经从许多不同的方向进行了比较深入的研究，比如蒋应标的《“垮掉的一代”和“迷惘的一代”对现实逃避方式的不同》，王霞的《以弗洛伊德的人格结构理论解读“垮掉的一代”》等，但是对与“垮掉的一代”出现的思想渊源的研究还鲜少涉足，因此有充分论及和发掘的余地。
杰克•凯鲁亚克的《在路上》是被公认的“垮掉的一代”的经典作之一。《在路上》一经发表，即刻吸引了当时成千上万的美国大学生和青少年，几乎人手一册，成了“垮掉的一代”青年的“生活教科书”。因此，对《在路上》进行深入研究能很好的理解“垮掉的一代”的行为及思想基础。是以本论文将以小说《在路上》为基础，结合当时的社会背景、作者凯鲁亚克和其他主要“垮掉的一代”代表作家的创作和生平、“嬉皮士”、禅宗和存在主义哲学究其根源，剖析“垮掉的一代”出现的思想渊源。


关键词：“垮掉的一代”，思想渊源，《在路上》，“嬉皮士”，禅宗，存在主义