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counterculture in the 1920s
howl ginsberg analysis
howl analysis allen ginsberg
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William Wordsworth's definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" is more evident in Allen Ginsberg's Howl than just about any other poem (Wordsworth). Divided into three distinctive sections as well as an additional footnote, the poem utilizes a writing style based on self-symmetry to act as the framework for this overflow. The progression from one section to the next gives an impression of a crumbling society, brought to its knees through years of excessive lifestyle choices. Though the individual sections don't have official titles of their own, they could be assigned the titles of Life, Moloch, Rockland, and Holy respectively. The decision to include the footnote as separate from the original work is questionable, since its very existence has the potential to change the entire reading of the poem. If the reader skips the footnote, the poem is noticeably more straightforward than otherwise, cataloging a steady decent into the all-encompassing destroyer government. The poem would be singular in its expression, ending with the madness of the third section where the only hope of escape is to ignore the walls of the asylum and use delusion as a gateway to personal freedom. With the footnote included, Ginsberg seems to be offering a possible refutation to the negativity of the previous three sections, where both good and bad perception melt into a singular divinity with no subject or activity being left exempt. Besides the attempt at redemption in the footnote, Howl demonstrates the strong contrast between popular culture and counterculture, and serves as a portrait of American youth desperately trying the escape their inevitable assimilation into the machinery present in Moloch.
Ginsberg's poem is expressive enough that it was labeled as obscene when it was published in 1957. America had steadily let itself become boring enough as a culture that the following decade would feel the need to establish a new link with their own humanity, so the obscenity trial isn't overly surprising. The average working-class family would be shocked to read lines like: who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Carribean love. (Ginsberg, 36-37)
The legal trouble experienced by Ginsberg could be looked at as a case of ...
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...fe that can be located at any point in space, and has been going on since the Big Bang initially set the wheels in motion (Watts).
Though he refutes his own dominant message throughout the course of Howl, it is a resolution based on symbolism rather than a concrete solution steeped in reality. By focusing on the rapid introduction of unnamed individuals, he establishes the setup before the fall. Their chaotic and frantic lifestyles fly in the face of the popular opinion of the country, and so the energy they present exists almost solely to be destroyed. The omnipresent troubles in our country can only be solved through means of either absolute insanity or convincing ourselves through means of philosophy that there was never a problem to begin with. With the description of popular culture as one of the most oppressive figures in literary history, Ginsberg's optimism is perhaps reserved only for the counterculture that he sought to glorify. All the power and energy of life is still present in the form of the anonymous "who," and it's merely a battle to see whether or not the human spirit can manage to struggle through the trials of Moloch without ending up in a mental institution.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Rosenthal, M.L. "Poet of the New Violence". On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Ed. Lewis Hyde. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984. 29-31.
Allen Ginsberg was a Jewish American poet, who was born in June 3 1929, he’s poetry vigorously opposed such topics as militarism, economic materialism and sexual- repression. Ginsberg is best known for his epic poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.
Homosexuality remained illegal in most parts of America until the 1960s, but Ginsberg refused to equate his Gay identity with criminality. He wrote about his homosexuality in almost every poem that he wrote, most specifically in ‘Many Loves’ (1956) and ‘Please Master’ (1968), his paeans to his errant lover Neal Cassady. Ginsberg’s poems are full of explicit sexual detail and scatological humour, but the inclusion of such details should not be interpreted as a childish attempt to incense the prudish and the square.
Kay, H. H. (2004, Jan). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor of Law. Columbia Law Review, 104, 1-20. doi:10.2307/4099343
A few cases in which this poem is particularly relevant in today’s society, apart from just the general hipster culture, is the fact that in many ways we’re faced with similar issues of social oppression of certain sects of the population, homophobia, discord amongst different cultures and excessive consumerism – all these being matters than Ginsberg felt strongly about and sought to fight against.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.” The opening lines of Howl, by Allan Ginsberg, melodiously encapsulates the beat generation. The beats alluded to by the verbatim ,“The best minds”, are a group of idiosyncratic poets whom through the instrument of prose(driven by spontaneity and a primal lifestyle) , orchestrated a rebellion against the conservative beliefs and literary ideals of the 1950s. Howl, utilizing picturesque imagery, expounds holistically upon the instigator of the movement in culmination with personal experiences of beat members. Accordingly “Howl” evokes feelings of raw emotional intensity that reflects the mindset in which the poem was produced. The piece is structured into three stanzas, sacrificing temporal order for emphasis on emotional progression. The first sequence rambles of rampant drug forages and lewd sexual encounters, eliciting intonations of impetuous madness, one ostensibly hinging upon on a interminable need for satiation of hedonistic desires. Concordantly the following stanza elucidates upon the cause of the aforementioned impulsive madness (i.e corruption of the materialistic society motivated by capitalism), conveying an air of hostility coalesced with quizzical exasperation. Yet, the prose concludes by turning away from the previous negative sentiments. Furthermore, Ginsberg embraces the once condemned madness in a voice of jubilation, rhapsodizing about a clinically insane friend while ascertaining the beats are with him concerning this state of der...
Everyone is always happy in the ‘50’s. With the picket fence, perfect family, fresh cut grass, it is no wonder why everyone wished they lived in the ‘50’s. In Ginsberg’s poem, Howl, pages cut through the fantasy to deliver us the background of this media-portrayed lifestyle. The communism, failed education system, and corruption of the government – a century filled with enough injustice to drive one into madness. Sharing the same perspective as Ginsberg, Howl illustrates the corruption in education and government that remains indifferent to the present time.
Allen Ginsberg, a profound poet, is famous as the writer of the collection of poems in the book Howl. Academic scholars have noted the poem Howl is documentation as a man’s journey through a wasteland of isolation. To note, the title Howl is a metaphor representation of the cries or the struggle he implemented in this poem. In the poems, he uses poetic writing, his greatest asset, to put emphasis on his struggle in his life, the unfortunate events of his generations, and the pain he has encounter during his time at the psych ward.
It was a key belief that in exercising self-control as a society not only the individual, but the entirety of society would be ameliorated therefore it figures that Ethan who succumbs to temptation of imagining a life with Mattie Silver and indulges in the arguably hedonistic act of seeking solace in illusions is condemned to what Carol J Singley calls ‘a living hell without possibility of salvation’ . Similarly, it is not entirely unexpected that this idea is also present in ‘The Great Gatsby’ as although F. Scott Fitzgerald did seek to challenge the ideals of 1920’s society, he was also seeking to write ‘The great American novel’ and, therefore, it would have been necessary for him reflect some of the ideals that defined the time in which he was writing, especially prohibition which in many ways defined the era. Its inclusion in ‘Howl and Other Poems’ is far more surprising as Ginsberg embraced the hedonistic tendencies of the Beatnik, as demonstrated by his numerous affairs frequent drug use. As such it
Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. New York, New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2005. print.
...g with many individuals, are alienated and in turn, wish for extreme change and even another life. Ginsberg conveys a vital message that carries through to the year 2010 even more. Materialism does not make a person, it is insignificant. What is imperative is the natural world; beauty, individuality, and real human interactions as these are concepts that make an individual.
American poetry, unlike other nations’ poetry, is still in the nascent stage because of the absence of a history in comparison to other nations’ poetry humming with matured voices. Nevertheless, in the past century, American poetry has received the recognition it deserves from the creative poetic compositions of Walt Whitman, who has been called “the father of American poetry.” His dynamic style and uncommon content is well exhibited in his famous poem “Song of Myself,” giving a direction to the American writers of posterity. In addition, his distinct use of the line and breath has had a huge impression on the compositions of a number of poets, especially on the works of the present-day poet Allen Ginsberg, whose debatable poem “Howl” reverberates with the traits of Whitman’s poetry. Nevertheless, while the form and content of “Howl” may have been impressed by “Song of Myself,” Ginsberg’s poem expresses a change from Whitman’s use of the line, his first-person recital, and his vision of America. As Whitman’s seamless lines are open-ended, speaking the voice of a universal speaker presenting a positive outlook of America, Ginsberg’s poem, on the contrary, uses long lines that end inward to present the uneasiness and madness that feature the vision of America that Ginsberg exhibits through the voice of a prophetic speaker.
Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" is a complex and intriguing poem about the divine in the common world. The minor themes of drugs and sexuality work together to illuminate the major theme of spirituality. The poem reveals through a multitude of sharp images and phrases that everything from drug use to homosexuality to mental illness is holy, even in a world of atom bombs and materialistic America, which Ginsberg considers not to be holy and he refers to as Moloch. As it is stated in Ginsberg's "Footnote To Howl," "The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is/ holy! The tongue and cock and hand and *censored* holy! / Everything is Holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy!" (3-5).
The 1950’s beatniks gather around coffeeshops, writing and grumbling about the unfairness of the government and society’s closed mind. Today, youth gather around their laptops and type away, despairing over the unfairness of the government and society’s closed mind. Allen Ginsberg’s poetry embodies those angry youth. His unique choices in diction, symbolism and imagery artfully conveys his criticism against the wrongdoings of Uncle Sam and his subjects. Through his poem America, Ginsberg reaches out to all generations of people and exposes the ethical mistakes that both the government and society as a whole make, and these mistakes are classic in the sense that it is always a mistake that everyone keeps repeating.