Allen Ginsberg Howl Analysis

The standards of obscenity and what is and is not protected by the First Amendment has evolved as the fields of literature and art have expanded. In 1956, the headlines were filled with mentions of Howl being fought about in court. Howl, a poem written by Ginsberg, is focused on the “outcast” groups of American society such as the mentally ill, members of the LGBT community, and drug users. Originally, he did not intend for the poem to get out to the public due to the references from his own life with past loves, friends, and experiences. But Ferlinghetti, overhearing the poem read for the first time publically, offered to publish the poem. Soon afterwards, the poem was taken to court. The personal bits and certain details of the poem got the poem sent to court where it was put through the newer standards and reading practices to determine obscenity. At the end of the trial, the judge determined that Howl was not be obscene and was protected by the First Amendment.

Therefore, Ginsberg’s Howl convinces readers that the themes of suffering and isolation expose the corrupt values of American society. Howl focuses on the detrimental culture of mankind that the poet endured

"The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is an eternity! Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!...Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums!"

Ginsberg asserted that the best minds were the underrepresented outcast. For example, Ginsberg states beginning of the poem, “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” (1-2). From the beginning of the poem, the reader would expect Ginsberg talking about intellectual people such as scientists, philosophers, inventors, etc. The best minds were regular people who had dreams and lived their life to the fullest. They would go to bars, look down on NY, talk about philosophy, do drugs, and be sexually active. It prevalent to our society

uses the repetition of certain words to sound almost robotic-like. This repetition speaks very strongly to his intensely communist views on capitalism as a machine. The use of syntax is the poem also speaks very strongly to Ginsberg’s public abuse of drugs and alcohol. The entire piece reads in the same mixed up order as if the speaker was inebriated or suffering from some sort of mental illness, also a commentary on Ginsberg’s opinion of insanity as a form of genius.

Where you were sick of the Tiffany-twisted minds, Mercedes bends, and the pretty pretty faces.

Emotional Bullshit Or, Something More? “Howl” the explicit, “Howl” the horrendous, and “Howl” the banned. Howl by Allen Ginsburg is the everyday life of a man and his colleagues living in a time and place where they are plagued by the isolation of society. Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, and later became a founding father of the “Beat Generation” with his poem "Howl." The Beat Generation was a group of writers post World War II who documented events and inspired a culture.

(Walt Whitman).” After Longfellow’s death, a violent reaction arose against his verses. Critics pointed out his gentle strain of romanticism.(source 3) Nonetheless, he was still named a great american poet during this

The Beat Generation is a literary movement during the 1950s that consisted of male authors including the widely known Allen Ginsberg, who explored American culture in their poems. The Beat Generation could be described as misogynistic and patriarchal due to their exclusion of women and concerns confined to only male outcasts. In Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 “Howl”, he brings his audience’s attention to male outcasts in society. In her 2015 “Howl”, a critical response to Ginsberg’s “Howl”, Amy Newman explores the oppression outcasted women endure in a male-dominated culture through the allusions of an admired female poet, Ginsberg’s original stanza form, and utilizing diction to convey a woman's perspective antithetically to Allen Ginsberg's original.

Allen Ginsberg is one of the great authors of the 20th century and he was one of the influential people who created and inspired the beat generation in literature. It was not until Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs started writing that the young generation in 1950’s America had a voice they felt was representing them in literature. Ginsberg’s most noted piece is the poem, "Howl" which he finished writing in 1955, being published in 1956 along with other poems in the book titled Howl and Other Poem. The three part poem with footnote has had mixed reviews and feelings from its readers. Some relate on an emotional level with the images they glean, while others find it to be a distasteful,

What Allen Ginsberg did in 1955 was unthinkable. In the midst of McCarthyism and severe anticommunist sentiment, he wrote a poem in which he admitted having belonged to the Communist party. Yet, even more surprising was that he didn't stop there. In his poem "America," Allen Ginsberg challenges the beliefs and values that the United States has always cherished, leaving no stone unturned, and no feather unruffled. Always the cynic and revolutionary, Ginsberg slaughters the sacred cows.

Allen Ginsberg was one of the founding fathers of what is considered the Beat Generation and the Beat Movement. Throughout his entire life he wrote multiple poems which voiced his certain opinions and thoughts about what America had been going through at the time. American poet, writer, and philosopher, Allen Ginsberg uses his life experiences and ideas on resistance, freedom, and the Beat Movement to express specific ideas within his poems.

In the poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg challenges the modernity of American culture, which enforces the “best minds” (1) to give up their freedom to conform to the desired sense of normality. Ginsberg states “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” (9). His expression of Moloch The angry fix is what all of these “best minds” look for after being stripped of their freedom to conform to the new American culture after World War II.

Allen Ginsberg’s revolutionary poem, Howl, is a powerful portrayal of life degraded. It represents the harsh life of the beat generation and chronicles the struggles of the repressed. Howl is a poem of destruction. Destruction of mind, body, and soul through the oppression of the individual. Using powerful diction, Allen Ginsberg describes this abolition of life and its implications through our human understanding of abstractions like Time, Eternity, and self. The poem’s jumbled phrasing and drastic emotion seems to correspond with the minds of the people it describes. Ginsberg uses surprisingly precise and purposeful writing to weave the complex

Walt Whitman is regarded as one of the most influential poets in American history while Allen Ginsberg was and still is considered a leading figure of the Beat Generation. Both of these poets have similar poetic tendencies even though they were almost a century apart from each other. Walt Whitman helped to inspire many literary descendants ranging from writers to poets alike. One of his most famous poems is in his book, “Leaves of Grass”, called “Song of Myself”. Allen Ginsberg can be considered one of Walt Whitman’s literary descendants due to the numerous similarities between “Song of Myself” and Ginsberg’s “Howl”, which is about the real experiences of Americans after World War II.