Ginsberg's Critique of America in Howl

Ginsberg’s critique of America in “Howl”

The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation was a literary and cultural movement in America of the 1950s. Although it was not a large movement regarding the sheer numbers, one cannot say the same thing about its influence and cultural status. The movement appeared as a consequence of the Second World War, when students of universities began to question the excessive materialism in their society. They wouldn’t agree with the runaway capitalism, which they considered it will destroy the human spirit, as well as they didn’t agree with the exaggerated prudery seen at their parents’ generations. They considered that frank discussions about sexuality are healthy, especially for the psyche.^[1]

The founders of this movement were students at the Columbia University at the beginning of the 1940s. It was Jack Kerouak with Allen Ginsberg who initially formed the base of the group, continuing to defend the Beat sensibility in the future years. Lucian Carr, John Clellon Holmes, Neal Cassidy, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs are names of the others amongst the original members of this group. The poets of the Beat Generation were influenced in particular by the Romantic poets. They see as especially influential poets like Percy B. Shelley or William Blake. Also, on the development of the movement’s aesthetics contributed the American Transcendental Movement, inspiring them very much in terms of confrontational politics.^[2]

Howl

With the publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) there will be a turning point in history of this movement’s literature, but in American literature as well. The poem is read aloud, sometimes chanted, shocking in terms of obscenity and challenging the American definition of pornography. ^[3]

Stephen Burt says that Ginsberg never wrote something like Howl before. He was a promising student of Columbia University in the 40s. But growing disillusioned with academia, he dropped out, then he came back in 1948, when he fell in love with the Beats. He was caught while stealing, but, instead of jail, he got to the Columbia Psychiatric Institute, where he met Carl Solomon, a patient of the Institute himself, which inspired Ginsberg in writing this poem, through his charisma and travails (like insulin coma-therapy).^[4]

Michael McClure says that Howl can be compared to Queen Mab--Shelley's first long poem:

“Howl was Allen's metamorphosis from quiet, brilliant, burning bohemian scholar trapped by his flames and repressions to epic vocal bard.  Shelley had made the same transformation.” (McClure)

Ginsberg’s poem, Howl, which gained immense popularity in the 1950s, speaks about issues of America of that time. In her paperwork, Jessica Porter notes that Jason Shinder talks about the huge popularity of the poem since it was published in 1956. Being translated into over two dozen languages, Howl was never out of print and it is considered a classic work of literature. Regarding the impact of the poem, Shinder says that Howl is “responsible for ‘loosening the breath’ of homosexuality, politics, drugs, tyranny, loneliness, music, madness, and death”. (Porter)

The poem begins with Ginsberg showing that his once creative friends are now falling away from their lives. The first line speaks very clear, as one can see the generation losing its soul, its mind, while everything around is falling apart. (Breslin)

“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,”

James E. Breslin observes that the beginning of the poem is immersing the reader “in the extremities of modern urban life”, making him become aware of the indifference and hostility. He also notes that "Howl constantly pushes toward exhaustion, a dead end, only to have these ends twist into moments of shuddering ecstasy.” In the lines that follow the boundaries are set down, the self is enclosed, only to suddenly disintegrate, while ecstasy takes the place of terror. The “angelheaded hipster” is no more that the “madman bum”. (Breslin)

”[…] angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz”

This can be seen as a wakeup call. Everything they worked for was falling apart, getting lost in a false reality. Although his feelings of despair, Ginsberg managed to put his mind on the paper, writing about everything was happening around him, and the loss of his friends. Jessica Porter notes that “in the first lines of the poem, Ginsberg laments the destruction of the “best minds” of his generation, recalling “madness,” hysterics and drug use, juxtaposed against apocalyptic language of internal struggle; of angels, “burning,” seeking a “heavenly connection” to a “starry dynamo” amongst the darkness of night.” Ginsberg tries to find the truth of what is going outside trough a language denoting deeply affection and impressionism of his internal conflict. (Porter)

Breslin notes that the hipsters finally present “themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy”, and this line can be interpreted as their wish for immediate release from their heads, from suffering. But instead of that, they will get “prolonged incarceration”, “the concrete void of insulin” shots and therapy aiming not at liberation but just “adjustment”, as their “bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon”. Furthermore, Breslin notes that the following line is the longest and the most despairing one, at which point the poem seems about to collapse:

“[…] with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4am and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination”.

One of the most important consequences of this poem is that it brought topics which were considered taboo into the public sphere. Until that moment, marginal groups, such as homosexuals and mentally ill, were restricted to misconceptions and prejudice, also being socially oppressed. From this point of view, Ginsberg’s poem brings into light not only the existence of these socially marginal groups, but their powerful social presence as well. The homosexual language of the passage above has the purpose to make the audience understand the overt language of the poem and accept homosexuality. (Porter)