Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Howl Alen Ginsberg Lived Essay

PAGES
1
WORDS
391
Cite

¶ … Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg Howl

Alen Ginsberg lived a colorful life in which he participated in many of the contemporary periods subcultures. He believed that the United States had evolved into something of a materialistic society that demanded conformity and submission to cultural norms. The radicals that resisted the mainstream culture were what Ginsberg referred to as the "best minds" and they were fallen heroes in his view. The group experimented with drugs, sex, Eastern religions, anti-consumerism, and a general opposition to any kind of expression through materialism.

The poem Howl uses intense symbolism, imagery and word play throughout. The central theme of the poem seems to incorporate madness. The best minds that he envisioned were considered mad and only allowed to move freely at night. He uses a lot of variations of words to describe various aspect of the underground society that he relates to. The addicts chase a "fix" that is described as angry and beards are described as pubic hair. His phrase "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" became extremely popular and represent the anti-establishment notion of the counter-culture.

The readers in the contemporary period were likely to perceive the poem as exciting, maybe even somewhat frightening. The book won even wider attention after it wound up in court. In 1957, San Francisco authorities prosecuted Howl as obscene: The ACLU came to the book's defense, and a courtroom crowd applauded Judge Clayton Horn's decision that the book had "some redeeming social importance" and could therefore be sold[footnoteRef:1]. [1: (Burt)]

Ginsberg claimed the Emily Dickson was an influence on his work as well as many other poets and even Walt Whitman. Dickson was one of the first American poets to intertwine emotional experiences and the use a psychological rhetoric. Furthermore her writing took a pace and tone that could be considered somewhat musical in its effect. These elements can also be found in Ginsberg's Howl and would also explain why Dickson was credited with being an influence for Ginsberg and the other members of the "Beat Generation" as a whole. The Beat Generation was a group of writers such as Ginsberg who formed an alternate view of society and were more tolerant of people's dispositions that were considered vulgar or obscene.

Works Cited

Burt, S. "The Paradox of Howl." 19 April 2006. Slate. Online. 21 April 2013.

Cite this Document:

"Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Howl Alen Ginsberg Lived" (2013, April 23) Retrieved April 23, 2024, from
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/ginsberg-allen-ginsberg-howl-alen-ginsberg-100756

"Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Howl Alen Ginsberg Lived" 23 April 2013. Web.23 April. 2024. <
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/ginsberg-allen-ginsberg-howl-alen-ginsberg-100756>

"Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Howl Alen Ginsberg Lived", 23 April 2013, Accessed.23 April. 2024,
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/ginsberg-allen-ginsberg-howl-alen-ginsberg-100756

Related Documents

At present, the meter readers believe that all advances in technology have not benefitted them, in terms of making their work easier or improving their wages or benefits. All the new innovations have done have sufficed to make it easier for management to 'speed up' the work requirements, with no added benefit in terms of wages or ease of work. The leadership of the union is in a state of

This is evident from the first as the poet writes, I am inside someone -- who hates me. I look out from his eyes (1-3). This approach allows him to take a jaundiced view of himself and criticize his own shortcomings, as if they were those of someone else. He says he hates himself, meaning more that he hates some of the things he has done and that he may expect

Improving on-the-job training and streamlining standardized procedures might be a more effective way to meet company objectives. Q3. What legal ramifications, if any, should Sam have considered? Furthermore, Sam's company could be facing serious legal problems, as a result of needlessly increasing educational requirements for readers. In the "landmark Griggs v. Duke Power Co. case of 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Duke's requirement of high school diplomas or IQ

Municipal WiFi network Potential to spark investment Getting a high-speed connection for a business can be quite costly and most businesses prefer to stay without an internet connection. With a municipal WiFi network, businesses have the potential to access the internet at low cost and without having to make huge initial investments (Ylipulli, Suopajarvi, Ojala, Kostakos, & Kukka, 2014). The marina has the potential to attract many investors and other businesses, but

Labor Relations Automation in the Workplace Technology has changed the workplace with the potential to automat many processes. The jobs which have been impacted may be seen in many industries. Initially, automation was seen as impacting on manufacturing, where the creation of robots to undertake many of the manufacturing process as seen as having the potential to eliminate almost all manual manufacturing jobs (Sloane and Witney, 2010). These were over estimates, as

Night the Crystals Broke Write where you got inspiration from? The inspiration from this poem comes from my grandmother and her family, who lived through the pogroms and just before the Nazis took over Hungary. The title refers to the Kristallnacht, the event in which the Nazis burned synagogues and their religious items, and broke the windows. They also broke the windows of the local businesses. This poem also refers to