The Beat Generation Essay

In the poem Howl part one, Allen Ginsberg travels all over the world and describes his life and the “ best minds of his generation” (1) the beat poets. Ginsberg expresses his tone with emptiness, darkness, and depression. Part two; the word Moloch represents war, governments, psychiatric hospital, universities and any other social authorities. Ginsberg conveys that Moloch is responsible for war and sorrows; this ties to the first part of Ginsberg poem. In part three; “I’m with you in Rockland”, where Rockland represents the mental hospital. With the calmer tone, he addresses his friend from “Rockland” Carl Solomon. He conveys how Solomon suffers from delusions, and compares Solomon with his mother. “I’m with you in Rockland

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).

The beat generation was a movement that sought to oppose American society values, and any sort of control. They explored Eastern religions, was somewhat postmodernism, rejected the materialistic culture, spoke about drugs, our conscious mind, and fought for sexual liberation and exploration with their unapologetically offensive language. While reading the novel Jitterbug Perfume written by Tom Robbin, one can witness how the novel exhibits aspects of the beat literature, and thus concluding that the beat generation served as inspiration to Tom Robbin.

No one in life ever wants to face things alone. On this Howl of a journey that Ginsberg is on,

Late night jazz clubs are where some of these famous writers would be found enjoying themselves to this environment as well as searching for inspiration for their writing efforts. These writers included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Carso, Neal Cassady, as well as others. This group of individuals decided to name themselves "The Beats" for their love of jazz music and writing, and because they were tired, or beat, from the authority and rules opposed upon them. The themes that the Beat Generation authors were based upon were a balance of an ongoing revelation against traditional civilization through free thought in the writing and actions, the experimentation and jazz culture, as well as the respect of the earth and all the people in

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

Allen Ginsberg dedicates the entire third part of his epic poem, exclaiming his loyalty, to his dear friend, Carl Solomon. The third part of Howl is an example of loyalty that Beatnik artists and intellects have towards one another. In a small community like the Beatniks, it is sensible to be loyal to those whom one can truly trust and connect with as there are more who will challenge you than stand by you. So, it is crucial to hold on to those who share in your successes and tribulations with an open mind and open heart.

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 form of Ginsberg’s poem challenges the American culture by resistance from “best minds”. Howl is separated to three sections that include long lines, which look like paragraphs. Resisting

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.

The Beat Movement, beginning in the 1950’s, consisted of a group of American writers that went against the social norms of that generation. During that time in America, society bent themselves out

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.

Influences of the Beat Movement can be noted in the next phase of American History: Hippie counter-culture of the 1960s. The Beat Generation was an important political catalyst for those minorities that had no voice. The “beatniks” of the movement were seen as a threat by those Americans that lived in the typical suburbs of American who tried to raise their children in morally upright ways (Silesky, 81).

The beats became a popular literary movement in the 1950s and 1960s when writers who shared a distaste of American virtues of progress and power began experimenting with their writing styles trying to revolutionize American culture. The Beat movement appeared in three major locations, San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Jack Kerouac one of the most documented about Beat writers is credited with defining the term ‘Beat Generation.’ In an interview Kerouac described the word beatific as down and out, ‘characters of a special spirituality who didn’t gang up but were solitary Bartlebles staring out the dead wall windows of our civilisation.’ Beat writers expressed their opposition from conventional society through their works by using themes like drugs and sex and at a time after World War II people wanted normalcy however at the time materialism and conformist careers were at the forefront. As well as this at that time college students began to question the actions of the American society which the beats took advantage of. Beat poets also wanted to liberate poetry from these conformists and bring it back to what it was supposed to be; which