Jack Kerouac

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Jack Kerouac's On the Road Explained

correspondence from Jack Kerouac to Malcolm Cowley, 1956

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Jack Kerouac summary

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poem. A poet in a Heian period kimono writes Japanese poetry during the Kamo Kyokusui No En Ancient Festival at Jonan-gu shrine on April 29, 2013 in Kyoto, Japan. Festival of Kyokusui-no Utage orignated in 1,182, party Heian era (794-1192).

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Queen Elizabeth II addresses at opening of Parliament. (Date unknown on photo, but may be 1958, the first time the opening of Parliament was filmed.)

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Shah Jahan. Taj Mahal. Mughal architecture. Emperor Shah Jahan fifth Mughal Emperor (reigned 1628-1658) India, Himachal Pradesh, Basohli or Jammu and Kashmir, Mankot, circa 1690 Drawings; Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper (see notes)

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Parsons Weems' Fable, oil on canvas by Grant Wood, 1939; in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Catalog entry: The historian Mason Locke Weems, commonly known by his clerical title, Parson Weems, pulls back a curtain to point at 6-year-old George Washington. Bearing an adult head and holding an axe, George gazes blankly up at his father, Augustine, who questions his son while holding a partially cut cherry tree. All of this takes place in front of a 20th-century brick building, which Wood modeled after his own home in Iowa. The scene illustrates the fable of Washington and the cherry tree, which Weems invented in 1806 for the first president's biography. Wood playfully suggests the artifice of the tale here, presenting the story in the manner of a costumed stage play rather than a real event. Amid the action, two Black figures pick cherries in the background, a reference to Washington' slaveholding past and a reminder of of what often gets left out in historical mythmaking.

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The Lost Colony of Roanoke, North Carolina, where 115 people mysteriously disappeared c. 1590. John White discovers the word Croatoan carved onto a tree upon his return to the deserted Roanoke Colony in 1590

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Jack Kerouac: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Also Known As	Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
Born	March 12, 1922 • Lowell • Massachusetts
Died	October 21, 1969 (aged 47) • Saint Petersburg • Florida
Notable Works	“Belief and Technique for Modern Prose” • “Desolation Angels” • “Doctor Sax” • “Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems” • “Maggie Cassidy” • “Mexico City Blues” • “On the Road” • “Scattered Poems” • “The Dharma Bums” • “The Subterraneans” • “The Town & the City” • “Tristessa” • “Vanity of Duluoz” • “Visions of Cody”
Movement / Style	Beat movement

Photos and Videos

correspondence from Jack Kerouac to Malcolm Cowley, 1956

Jack Kerouac's On the Road Explained

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Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser

American author

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks

American author, photographer, and film director

Paul Auster

Paul Auster

American author

Stein, Gertrude

Gertrude Stein

American writer

Thomas Merton

American writer

Mary Austin.

Mary Austin

American writer

Marya Mannes

American author and critic

Claude McKay

Claude McKay

American writer

May Sarton

American writer

June Jordan.

June Jordan

American author

Babette Deutsch

American poet, critic, translator, and novelist

Kenneth Rexroth

American poet and painter

Tillie Olsen

American author

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

American author

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

American author

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

American author

Alice Walker

Alice Walker

American writer

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks

American poet and educator

Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay

American writer and cultural critic

John G. Neihardt

John G. Neihardt

American poet

Quiz

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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry

A Study of Poetry

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

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Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) portrait by Carl Van Vecht April 3, 1938. Writer, folklorist and anthropologist celebrated African American culture of the rural South.

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List

Queen Elizabeth II addresses at opening of Parliament. (Date unknown on photo, but may be 1958, the first time the opening of Parliament was filmed.)

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