Allen Ginsberg, Howl and the Literature of Protest

BUNEA VALENTIN LEONARD

GROUP 3A, ENGLISH-AMERICAN STUDIES

ALLEN GINSBERG, ÐŽ§HOWLЎЁ AND THE LITERATURE OF PROTEST

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was an important figure in the Beat Generation Movement that took place right before the revolutionary American 60ÐŽ¦s. Other major beat writers (also called ÐŽ§beatnicksЎЁ) were: Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. The beat poetry was meant to be oral and very effective in readings. It developed out of poetry readings in underground clubs.(a beautiful image of these secret clubs can be found in the movie called ÐŽ§Dead PoetÐŽ¦s SocietyЎЁ with Robin Williams playing the main character). Some argued that it was the grandparent of rap music. The term ÐŽ§Beat GenerationЎЁ was coined by Kerouac in the fall of the 1948 in New York City. The word ÐŽ§beatЎЁ referred loosely to their shared sense of spiritual exhaustion and diffuse feelings of rebellion against what they experienced as the general conformity, hypocrisy and materialism of a larger society around them caught up in he unprecedented prosperity of postwar America.

The beat poetry was the most anticanon form of literature in the United States. The poetry is a cry of pain and rage, a howl at what the poets see as the loss of AmericaÐŽ¦s innocence and as a tragic waste.

Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey. His parents were second generation Russian- Jewish immigrants, left-wing radicals interested in Marxism, nudism, feminism, generally in the modern revolutionary ideas of his times. This background certainly did influence his evolution as a revolutionary poet. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a teacher and a poet, whose work was published in New York Times. During GinsbergÐŽ¦s childhood, his mother, Naomi Ginsberg, started to suffer from paranoia. She was institutionalized and eventually lobotomized. She died in an asylum in 1956. her life is the subject one AllenÐŽ¦s poem entitled ÐŽ§KaddishЎЁ and which was written as a compensation of her funeral service.

After he graduated a public high school, Ginsberg won a scholarship from Columbia University where he became a famous student, making friends with Williams Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Another important person was Neal Cassady who helped Ginsberg accept his homosexuality. Then he fell in love with his fellow student Lucien Carr. When Lucien Carr was convicted for murder, Ginsberg was ordered to undergo psychiatric counseling. He was suspended from the university for a year. Before receiving The BachelorÐŽ¦s Degree he worked as a welder in the Brooklyn Naval yards, as a dishwasher and night porter. Ginsberg was also accused of possessing stolen goods. He pleaded insanity and spent eight months at Columbia Psychiatric Institute. He was experimenting with drugs, hanging out with junkies and geniuses, brooding about his homosexuality, struggling to find his voice as a poet.

Later he campaigned for the liberation of American anti-drug laws. He wrote poems like ÐŽ§MescalineЎЁ, ÐŽ§Lysergic AcidЎЁ and ÐŽ§Laughing GasЎЁ.

In 1955 he launched ÐŽ§HowlЎЁ. It is one of his early works. The poem was published by Lawrence FerlinghettyÐŽ¦s City Light Press, with a foreword by Williams Carlos Williams:

ÐŽ§Hold back the edges of your gowns, we are going through hellЎЁ

The police seized the entirely printing on the grounds of obscenity.

ÐŽ§HowlЎЁ is a long free verse poem which exemplifies GinsbergÐŽ¦s ars poetica of spontaneous composition:

ÐŽ§All you have to do is think of anything that comes into your head, then arrange in lines of two, three or four words each, donÐŽ¦t bother about sentences, in sections of two, three or four lines eachЎЁ

The poem was made to be read aloud and became one of the symbols of the liberation of American culture in the 1950ÐŽ¦s.

The most important fragments and words are easy to identify, together forming a remaking of ÐŽ§HowlЎЁ:

„« ÐŽ§I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving

hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streetsЎЁ

„« universities, radiant cool eyes, expelled, marijuana

„« ate fire, drunk turpentine, dreams, drugs, waking nightmares, alcohol, cock and endless balls

„« backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkness over the rooftops

„« New York, Brooklyn, winter, Bronx

„« Screaming, vomiting, whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars

„« Wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go

„« Seeking visionary Indian angels, seeking jazz or sex or soup

„« Who distributed super communist pamphlets in Union Square

„« Who howled in their knees in the subway; who let themselves be fucked in the ass, screamed with joy

„« Unemployment offices, great suicidal dramas

„« Who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge; plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg

„« Cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores

„« Find