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Analysis of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Analysis of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Analysis of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg
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Recommended: Analysis of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Suffering of his Journey- Ginsberg Howl Allen Ginsberg, a profound poet, is famous as the writer of the collection of poems in the book Howl. Academic scholars have noted the poem Howl is documentation as a man’s journey through a wasteland of isolation. To note, the title Howl is a metaphor representation of the cries or the struggle he implemented in this poem. In the poems, he uses poetic writing, his greatest asset, to put emphasis on his struggle in his life, the unfortunate events of his generations, and the pain he has encounter during his time at the psych ward. Ginsberg is a Caucasian male born in the mid-1900s and raised in New Jersey. An American poet and born into the Beat generation, he been fixated in writing poems since his …show more content…
“Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! ... Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the park!” (line 2, 21).The depiction of children and boys weeping in armies represents the drafting of war, which only a high authorities power can conduct this action such as the government. He doesn’t use Moloch not to solely represent but with entities that have power. An interpretation for Moloch can be seen as corporation, such this line, “whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!” (line 6, 21). He continue to write that this Moloch can’t be escape from, “Moloch who enter my soul early” (line 9, 22) is to claim that since early years of a human life, is our life has been control and there is no free conscious to choose decisions for. Ginsberg claims that we struggle because of higher power is dictating and manipulate of an individual way of …show more content…
He expresses with Solomon by quote “Carl Solomon, I’m with you in Rockland where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter” (line 6, 24). This describes how both Solomon and Ginsberg are both writers from the same generations; they’re comrades to put into clarification. His emphasis his friends pain though a descriptive language, “I’m with you in Rockland where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game… I’m with you in Rockland where you bang the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die… I’m with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body” (line 11-13, 25). This descriptive language gives great detail the treatment that Solomon has went through. In the documentary, James Franco quoted, “I never have to do those treatment not like how Solomon went through”. Further onto the poem, the last line emphasis the companionship of Solomon and Ginsberg by, “I’m with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night” (line 19, 26). This is descriptive of a foretelling of an unbreakable friendship bond between Solomon and Ginsberg. The cottage in the western night is an analysis of where Ginsberg was living, when at the time he supposedly living at San Francisco, the West Coast of United
The "Poet of the New Violence" On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Ed. Lewis Hyde. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984. 29-31.
Throughout the words and the lives of the Beat Generation, one theme is apparent: America, everywhere from Allen Ginsberg’s “America,” to Jack Kerouac’s love for Thomas Wolfe. Although the views of America differ, they all find some reason to focus in on this land. Ginsberg, in his poem “America,” makes a point that not many of us can see as obvious: “It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.” Each and every one of us make up America, and when we complain about something that is wrong, we are complaining about ourselves. Being raised by his mother as a Communist, and being homosexual, Ginsberg found many things wrong with America, and he does his fare share of complaining, but at the end he decides, “America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.” Ginsberg didn’t want to sit and watch everything go wrong. He was going to do something, despite the fact that he was not the ideal American.
Homosexuality remained illegal in most parts of America until the 1960s, but Ginsberg refused to equate his Gay identity with criminality. He wrote about his homosexuality in almost every poem that he wrote, most specifically in ‘Many Loves’ (1956) and ‘Please Master’ (1968), his paeans to his errant lover Neal Cassady. Ginsberg’s poems are full of explicit sexual detail and scatological humour, but the inclusion of such details should not be interpreted as a childish attempt to incense the prudish and the square.
More of Knight’s notable use of diction and tone is found in this stanza, where he writes, “A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch/ And didn’t lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard Rock/ From before shook him down and barked in his face./ And Hard Rock did nothing” (lines 24-27). It can be felt from Knight’s use of tone that this type of action is uncharacteristic of Hard Rock. The second stanza details Hard Rock’s lobotomy, with Knight writing, “...the doctors had bored a hole in his head,/ Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity/ Through the rest” (lines 8-10). This leaves the inmate with an intruding presence of hopelessness. The imagery and diction is the last stanza of the poem drives home the motif of disheartenment that the black prison inmates felt after realizing that Hard Rock is forever changed. Similar to the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the central, nonconformist character Randle McMurphy, who gave the inmates a sense of hope, is lobotomized, leaving the prisoners afraid and unable to challenge authority in the way they could have if McMurphy was still his full, original self. This is the same way that Etheridge Knight and his fellow prisoners felt after Hard Rock’s return. The one person who was brave enough to stand back was now made into a martyr for the prisoners as well as an example made for the prisoners on what would happen if
Etheridge Knight’s “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” is an interesting poem spurred from his own experiences, that explores a variety of things from basic human emotions to controversial medical treatments. Knight was incarcerated for 8 years for robbery, during which he began to develop his skill as a poet, and this stint in prison influenced the settings and styles of his poetry. Knight’s poem is unique in its slang-styled diction, but brings about relatable concepts to allow the reader to connect with the text. Two prominent themes within the poem are that anyone, no matter how strong or looked up to, can be broken, and also that slavery is still alive today, even if it is not in its traditional form. Knight combines these themes with deeper meanings and an individual way of writing to create a poem that is compelling and classic.
Overall, what Ginsberg was trying to say is that we are ALL mad and crazy, but we are all also good. Ginsberg questions the human social actions throughout his journey with his friends, and wrote Howl to help others understand the social discrimination and chaos in the world. For me, I understand the reason behind the actions those bullies and their rumors have done to me, and that’s okay. It is a social truth, that society is unfair and cruel, also
Michael Gray’s analysis of Dylan’s lyrics being a contrast between hackneyed expressions and “beautifully done” are exemplified in the song “Just Like a Woman.” Dylan’s lyrics “she aches just like a woman but she breaks just like a little girl” is given the harsh description of “maudlin platitude” and deemed to be a “non-statement.” If Dylan’s lyrics cannot uphold against meaningful music of the same category, how can they be expected to stand against literature written for a different field. John Lennon had his own critiques of Dylan’s works, calling out how the abstract nature of his lyrics, having loose definition, never achieved an actual point. Lennon’s definition of “poetry” referred to “stick[ing] a few images together” and “thread[ing] them” in order to create something meaningful. It once again boils down to the fact that Dylan’s music that was written and intended to be received as a live performance. The acknowledgement that “…you have to hear Dylan doing it” is a recognition of his composition’s failure to come across as a normal literary work. It’s all part of a “good game.” This in itself should disqualify Dylan as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
“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, Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.” The opening lines of Howl, by Allan Ginsberg, melodiously encapsulates the beat generation. The beats alluded to by the verbatim ,“The best minds”, are a group of idiosyncratic poets whom through the instrument of prose(driven by spontaneity and a primal lifestyle) , orchestrated a rebellion against the conservative beliefs and literary ideals of the 1950s. Howl, utilizing picturesque imagery, expounds holistically upon the instigator of the movement in culmination with personal experiences of beat members. Accordingly “Howl” evokes feelings of raw emotional intensity that reflects the mindset in which the poem was produced. The piece is structured into three stanzas, sacrificing temporal order for emphasis on emotional progression. The first sequence rambles of rampant drug forages and lewd sexual encounters, eliciting intonations of impetuous madness, one ostensibly hinging upon on a interminable need for satiation of hedonistic desires. Concordantly the following stanza elucidates upon the cause of the aforementioned impulsive madness (i.e corruption of the materialistic society motivated by capitalism), conveying an air of hostility coalesced with quizzical exasperation. Yet, the prose concludes by turning away from the previous negative sentiments. Furthermore, Ginsberg embraces the once condemned madness in a voice of jubilation, rhapsodizing about a clinically insane friend while ascertaining the beats are with him concerning this state of der...
...erg’s lines are inwardly. The self of Whitman is all-encompassing but Ginsberg’s self is passive, lacking diversity by excluding rural settings. In short, Ginsberg’s Howl” is a journey through a different route to reality by leaving the doubts behind and taking the lead role of a public American poet-prophet, which Whitman only dreamt of in his life by composing poetry for an imagined audience.
The world was in 1950 at a point of multiple crossroads. After two World Wars an exemplary series of bad events followed, like the Cold War and the atomic menace. But it was also the beginning of some prosperity. People started again to gather material values. Nevertheless, the slow awakening from the fog of war was a process too complex to be generally accepted. In an apparently healing world there were still too many fears and too many left behind. On this ground of alienation, isolation and despair Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” emerged together with the Beat movement. John Tytell observed that the “Beat begins with a sense of natural displacement and disaffiliation, a distrust of efficient truth, and an awareness that things are often not what
Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" is a complex and intriguing poem about the divine in the common world. The minor themes of drugs and sexuality work together to illuminate the major theme of spirituality. The poem reveals through a multitude of sharp images and phrases that everything from drug use to homosexuality to mental illness is holy, even in a world of atom bombs and materialistic America, which Ginsberg considers not to be holy and he refers to as Moloch. As it is stated in Ginsberg's "Footnote To Howl," "The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is/ holy! The tongue and cock and hand and *censored* holy! / Everything is Holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy!" (3-5).
Philip Larkin’s poem “Talking in Bed” tells the truth about life and how relationships can slowly descend overtime. It explores the idea that no matter how close we are to someone, we can still experience intense depths of loneliness. The language emphasizes the feelings of what an empty marriage may feel like. The poem also gives the impression it is from the male’s perspective. It is written in four stanzas, each with three lines of ten syllables apiece. This makes it a short lyrical ballad. Through the tone, the language, and the imagery, Larkin is able to create a feeling in which he can effectively criticize and deconstruct the subject of innocence in relation to his current life experiences. There are many examples of imagery in this poem, all of which show two people in bed, lying close to each other, but somewhat distant in their relations as they realize how much they have changed. “Talking in Bed” also shows symbolism and lines that express multiple meanings by explaining the ultimate error throughout human history, man and wife living out their days with each other, yet being completely alone. They are not able to find the words that were once there, or knowing that the words that were once there never had true meaning.
...g with many individuals, are alienated and in turn, wish for extreme change and even another life. Ginsberg conveys a vital message that carries through to the year 2010 even more. Materialism does not make a person, it is insignificant. What is imperative is the natural world; beauty, individuality, and real human interactions as these are concepts that make an individual.
Raskin Jonah, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.
The society around us changes constantly and if we don’t catch up, we can possibly find ourselves in a suffering of our own madness. Ginsberg lived in a society in which homosexuals were unacceptable in which had to be treated with shock therapy. We can easily see why one can be driven to madness because it is hard for one individual to change the minds of many. Over time though we can see the issue being resolved and the acceptance of gays is becoming popular. But that is just the thing though, why must we let society define who we are and how to live? As far as I’m concerned, we are all human, no different from one another. Ginsberg’s poem Howl is important to read because it gives us insight into the cruel side of society in which people are constantly living in. With that knowledge, we can learn be more fair and to treat other people like equals and not opposites. We can take the initiative as individuals to make equality known and freedom