I Saw The Best Minds Of My Generation Destroyed By Madness

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

Ginsberg’s use of anaphora forces us to question the historical origins of both social afflictions and collective resistance in Howl, this blurring of the poet’s central objects of identification implies that his lamentation for the madness of his own generation is also a lamentation for the blighted hopes and wasted intellects of their precursors (384).

Allen Ginsberg’s collection Howl and Other Poems is a collection of poems that exudes rebellion. Every word and every stanza that Ginsberg writes throughout every single one of the poems is fueled with intentionality, and is used very purposefully to achieve a greater meaning. The entire collection is an allegory, Ginsberg publishes it in 1956, a time period

It was a 1951 TIME cover story, which dubbed the Beats a ‘Silent Generation, ’ that led to Allen Ginsberg’s retort in his poem ‘America,’ in which he vocalises a frustration at this loss of self- importance. The fifties Beat Generation, notably through Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl as will here be discussed, fought to revitalise individuality and revolutionise their censored society which seemed to produce everything for the masses at the expense of the individual’s creative and intellectual potential. Indeed, as John Clellon Holmes once noted: “TIME magazine called them the Silent Generation, but this may have been because TIME was not

The 1950s was a decade of extremes and abrupt change where the inhabitants of one of the most robust nations were led to their most vulnerable states, shuddering in fear of Communist tactics as a result of the immense Cold War tensions, lingering in the atmosphere from mainstream media and technological advances. Eliot Katz, author of Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg, highlights Ginsberg’s political impact “[i]n an era filled with too much military conflict, regressive economic policies, and the backsliding of civil liberties, the legacy of Allen Ginsberg [will remain] as important as ever,” (12). Rebellious revolutionary, avid activist, and insightful poet, Allen Ginsberg, wrote and published radical works of poetry during his lifetime,

In Allen Ginsberg’s poem, Howl, we are exposed American culture and society in the 1940s-50s through the narrator’s eyes. According to the narrator, the society looks down upon those who don’t conform to its rules and culture. This materialistic and militaristic culture had destroyed and drove them with “madness” and starved with “hysterical naked” looking for “an angry fix”. Just like the title suggest, this poem is a loud cry for the generation oppressed by the conformed American society that didn’t value artistic creativity. He openly describes and discusses his experiences in drug uses and involvement in various of unusual incidents and how they could be associated with the search of spiritual/ religious madness. Right away, we get a religious sense from this poem through the words like “angel headed hipsters”, “heavenly connection” and “Mohammedan angels”. Ginsberg uses different religious/spiritual imagery and implication to portray the oppression his generation face. He calls for change in the current political and social system of his time.

Similar to Marx, Ginsberg is against the idea of a small fraction of the people having significant control and power. Even though the poem is harsh on America, the goal of the author is not to shun or shame the country but try to better it. He is an extremely critical patriot trying to correct America’s flaws.

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.

Century apart, Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman share similar cultural, political and moral values, which they express in their literary work. Whitman’s writing is considered controversial for the eighteen hundreds. He sets the stage for generations to come breaking way from the strict Victorian poetic tradition by writing in free verse. Ginsberg follows his footsteps when composing his poem “Howl” by writing in long lines almost resembling prose and subdividing the poem into several parts. Likewise, he uses numerous repetitions to achieve rhythmicity of his verse. Ginsberg’s poem is heavily influenced by Whitman’s philosophy. The works “Song of myself” and “Howl” are similar in ideas, structure and underling themes. The two authors protest against old traditions imposed on the individual by corrupt society, stand against conformity and put emphasis on the need for change. They identify with their generation and dwell on themes such as sexuality, religion and the state of American society.

He writes “ 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” ( lines 1-2). Frank Casale discusses these lines in his article “Literary Contexts in Poetry: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl.’” He writes “The poem’s opening line has become one of the most famous in American poetry. It serves as an opening into the experience of madness, drugs, prophecy, and a new vision that compose the field of the first part of the poem” (Casale 1). This line introduces the theme of the poem and introduces Ginsberg’s view on insanity and the Beat lifestyle. He supports those “who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity, / [...] who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation” (60, 62). Casale continues by saying “In ‘Howl’ the Beats are repeatedly referred to as ‘angels,’ to connect those in search of the new consciousness or new vision [...] with the prophetic tradition. The quest for ‘kicks’ was not just an epicurean activity, but a serious search for freedom and new meaning in an America growing more conformist and authoritarian” (Casale 2). As a member of the Beat Generation, Ginsberg understands the Beat lifestyle and the way society views them, and he provides this generation with a

This poem is sometimes referred to as a violent “howl” of human anguish. It attacks the forces of conformity and mechanization that Ginsberg believed destroyed the best minds of his generation. This poem has no real structure or rational connection of ideas, and the rules of grammar are abandoned in order to pack imagery into one line. The poem points the way toward a new and better existence, chronicling the pilgrimage of the “mad generation” toward a reality that is timeless and placeless, holy and eternal.

Therefore, in the very beginning, Ginsberg presents to the reader the subject and tone of the poem in the context of this question. Ginsberg’s questions make the audience realize the seriousness of the issues that this poem discusess, such as America, politics, war, humanity, and ethics.

Poet Allen Ginsberg composed "Howl" in 1955 and it was published by City Lights Books of San Francisco, CA the following year. He composed the poem in the middle of the 1950s, one of the greatest decades in history for mainstream America. It had been a decade since the American and Allied victory in the second world war. Numerous American men returned home to a country in much better shape than expected, with many women having entered the workforce to keep the economy and industry alive in their absence. The spoils of war were great and America saw a great era of prosperity and domestic, suburban bliss. More interstate highways were constructed. Many more cars were produced and bought. It was a classic era for mainstream American culture in the 1950s. Yet in the haze of the suburbs, expansion of television, growth of Hollywood, and cars, present here were the seeds of rebellion and counterculture that was more indicative of the following decade, 1960s. One such seed is the poem

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.

In the second stanza, Ginsberg changes from addressing America to addressing himself. This is an important transition because it is here where he comes to the conclusion that there are two Americas. "It occurs to me that I am America. / I am talking to myself again." (P-M 369) This revelation comes by way of Time Magazine, which he is obsessed with and reads religiously. "It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. / Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but