Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

essay by Kerouac

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"Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" is an essay by Jack Kerouac, a key figure in the Beat movement. This essay, published in 1958, outlines Kerouac's approach to writing, emphasizing "first thought, best thought" and a rejection of revision as a form of "literary lying".1

Kerouac advocated for a writing style he called "spontaneous bop prosody," influenced by the improvisational nature of bebop jazz. He used dashes instead of conventional punctuation to create a rhythmic flow, akin to a jazz musician drawing breath between phrases. This method aimed to capture the truth of the moment, with language governed by sound and poetic devices like alliteration and assonance. Kerouac's most famous work, On the Road, exemplifies this technique, though it was heavily revised from its initial scroll draft.123

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Jack Kerouac
Legacy of Jack Kerouac
…in the Evergreen Review: “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” (1958) and “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose” (1959). On the grammatically irreverent sentences, Kerouac extolled a “method” eschewing conventional punctuation in favor of dashes. In “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” he recommended the “vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz…
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…in the Evergreen Review: “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” (1958) and “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose” (1959). On the grammatically irreverent sentences, Kerouac extolled a “method” eschewing conventional punctuation in favor of dashes. In “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” he recommended the “vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz…
Read More