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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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Spirituality in Howl by Allen Ginsberg
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).
Sexuality is a theme that runs throughout the entire poem. It is not an uptight sexuality of the 1950's culture but a liberated one. And this sexual imagery, that mostly takes place in the first part of the poem, constantly refers to spirituality and the divine. The poem reads, "who let themselves be *censored*ed in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and/ screamed with joy, / who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors," (91-93). These two images contrast the common view of homosexuality in the 1950's. The sailors are "seraphim", and the motorcyclists are "saintly". They are not corrupt as the common view might see it. The combination of these images helps to uncover the true theme of the piece. The things that most people of the time would consider to be depraved, such as homosexuality, are actually divine.
Images of drug-use are other tools that are used in this poem to help illuminate the major theme. Once again, even though the drug -users " …ate fire in paint...
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... machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the mind! (262-73) Even with all this negativity in the poem, the major theme of spirituality remains.
The poem "Footnote To Howl" sums up the theme of spirituality in "Howl". It reads, "The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is as holy as you my/ soul are holy!" (7-8). Spirituality and the divine run through "Howl" like veins. They carry the theme throughout the piece and deliver it to the reader.
Works Cited
Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and other Poems City Lights Books San Francisco 1956
Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, in their poems “We Real Cool” and “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, are both alike in their idea of dealing with troubled youth. Brooks discusses in her poem “We Real Cool” rebellious pool-playing youth that “sing sin” (Line 5) and “thin gin.” (Line 6) The whole poem centers around disturbed youth. The narrator in Sonia Sanchez’s poem “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, is also a disturbed young woman who is addicted to heroin, and seems to live a rather rebellious lifestyle. In addition, both of these poems use tone via word choice, sentence structure, and meter in order to vividly describe the scenarios in their poems, and to impact their reader. However, both poets use the literary elements mentioned above differently in their poems.
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Religion often enlightens one with newfound reverence and respect. While caring for the wolf, the man finds both reverence and respect through a few spiritual encounters. As he is walking with the wolf, the man hears coyotes calling from the hills “above him where their cries [seem] to have no origin other than the night itself.” This represents the heavens calling out to the wolf to enter its gates. Once the man stops to build a fire, he seems to hold a ritual for the wolf. His shelter steamed “in the firelight like a burning scrim standing in a wilderness where celebrants of some sacred
This good that he exclaims is in the footnote to Howl where he preaches “Holy! Holy! Holy!” (line 1). Everything is holy. This footnote is like Ginsberg’s own little prayer. Not those formal prayers that some would hear in a church. Ginsberg’s prayer is full of support, that all these happenings in the world is all bad but there is good to it. He wants readers and people to know that social injustice is inevitable and that it is alright. In part two he mentions that Moloch is evil, but in the footnote, he prays for the “Angel in Moloch.” Every little thing in the world, good or bad, it is holy.
also a reference to the howling of demons. It was written in seven volumes, and
Ginsberg was a literary revolutionary as can be seen in his poetry. He pushed form and genre, theory and confrontation, confession and controversy right to the threshold and over the doorway of societal standards. In pushing and pushing, Ginsberg creates a new vocabulary for certain words by capitalizing them and giving them the significance of the ‘proper noun.’ By capitalizing the first letter of certain words, Ginsberg gives a solid identity to intangible things and redefines their role in a corrupted society that has destroyed the “best minds” of his generation.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
Despite Dylan Thomas’ often obscure images, he expresses a clear message of religious devotion in many of his poems. He creates images that reflect God’s connection with the earth and body. In “And death shall have no dominion,'; Thomas portrays the redemption of the soul in death, and the soul’s liberation into harmony with nature and God. Thomas best depicts his beliefs, though abstract and complicated, to the reader with the use of analogies and images of God’s presence in nature. Appreciating the virtue of humility in “Shall gods be said to thump the clouds,'; Thomas associates God with thunder, rainbows, and night only to remind us that He is even more present in a simple stone as He is in other great entities. In “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,'; Thomas again makes the connection of body and earth, implying that there is only one holy force that has created all motion and life on this planet. This force, because it is so pure and boundless, is present in the shadows and poverty of our world, as depicted in “Light breaks where no sun shines.'; God’s sacred presence in the body and earth is the ultimate theme within these chosen poems.
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking the hypocritical clergy and pointing out the ironies and cruelties found within the doctrines of organized religion. He wrote about the horrific working conditions of children as a means to magnify the inequality between the poor working class and the well to do aristocracy.
Andrew Marvell successfully writes about a delicate subject without coming off as dirty or disrespectful to the subject of sexuality. Each stanza carries a different way of looking at the same subject. The way Marvell speaks in the first stanza shows that he is not being impetuous, that he does love his mistress. He creates a sense of timelessness and then in the second stanza he sweeps that away and introduces death as frightening but unavoidable. He realizes how precious time is and is very effective in convincing his mistress of this fact as well. The last lines leave the reader with the image of this couple conquering and taking advantage of time by making the sun run. This poem would not be what it is without the detailed imagery, symbolism, and metaphors that Marvell applied to each stanza.
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
"Much Madness Is Divinest Sense." Poetry for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale, 2002. 84-100. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.