The relationship between Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer and Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl - Research Paper Example

Literature as one of the most important kinds of art always stays on the way of any attack on the freedom of thinking and speaking. Sexual relations despite their fullest and most serious impact on life of people were concealed for a long time. But at the beginning of the 20th century global and massive changes in all the spheres of human activities affected literature as well. Writers and other artists began to experiment with the form and content in order to provide something completely new an with its help represent and reflect more clearly so quickly changing world. 20th century was a century of everything new, it was a time of breaking barriers and so obsolete moral, intellectual and ethical standards were doomed. People of high spirit, truly intelligent and creative took this initiative in their hands and their work was progressive and shocking but most of all honest and truthful. Among the best of them are two most impressive, essential and truly spectacular pieces of American literature which not only provided further progress in the struggle with the tyranny of censorship but also started whole new movements and even declared incredibly fresh and innovative writing techniques and methods. Both these literature treasures used sex and sexual relationships as a leitmotiv but under the material and flesh cover lies truly spiritual, cultural and humane deep knowledge of people, environment, art, religion and a lot of other things which have eternal value. These works are “Howl” by brilliant Allen Ginsberg and “Tropic of Cancer” by impressive Henry Miller. When “Howl” and “Tropic of Cancer” were published they suffered a huge oppression of the American government. That is because deeply conservative and short sighted mass of people didn’t find it appropriate to talk so freely about the most intimate and close topic of sexual intercourse. Surely the main theme of these works is not only sex because sex is an obvious symbol of confronting the environment. Today films, books, cartoons, comics and magazines show and talk about sex in any way but it was totally different from the times of “Howl” and “Tropic of Cancer”. The main point in our discussion is morality and ethical definition of what is right and wrong. Government of the USA judged these books in the court and did not publish them until years and decades because people thought it was immoral and wrong to allow the distribution of them. There is no bad advertising and any publicity attracts attention. Silly and foolish critiques as well as the representatives of government did exactly the opposite to what they wanted to do. They made these books incredibly popular by attracting to them a huge audience of curious readers. Such funny thing happened in the country which most of the world’s population thought was the land of freedom and homeland of the liberty and that made a contrast sharper and brighter. “I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, for grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want everyone to scratch himself to death.” (Miller 66) Genius is not an average person and so are the works of genius. History of literature is full of the examples of confrontations between writers on one side and huge masses of people and government on the other side. Remember Voltaire who criticized everything and everyone in his times and his revolution in mind was followed by the real great revolution. Interesting to add that Voltaire as an example was mentioned during the court sessions about “Howl”. Great minds are visioners and they sometimes exist in the future more than in the present. That makes other people either jealous or happy. People who change the world are often misunderstood, judged and even hated. That is because arrogant crowd could not understand something worthy and mob always hates what it can’t understand. “A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty ... what you will.” (Miller 74) “Howl” and “Tropic of Cancer” which are full of the criticism of the government, people, their relations, illusive feeling of safety and freedom represented not only the world of that times but the world of the future. Every good author is an innovator. He can’t agree with the reality and doesn’t want to be satisfied. He speaks and writes something in order to make world a better place to live in. He shows people their weakness and people are always unhappy when someone points out and shows them their negative sides. Henry Miller was an innovator because of his style and approach to the literature. His way of thinking and spectacular truly humane experience allowed him to write the book about life itself through the prism of sex and romantic love because exactly this love is the reason of our existence. Crowd decided that masterful novel is a spit in the face of conservative, moral values. Such foolish attempt to hide sex and sexual relationships in the bedroom was an ugly lie because sex is one of the most significant and important themes of our life. Every significant question must be answered or at least an attempt to answer them must be presented. Sexual intercourse is not only a basis of human relationships and their desires but also an unconscious key motive of our activities. Ask Mr. Freud if you don’t believe that sex rules and drives everything that people do, think or say. Freud with his psychoanalitic approach to the human existence and deep scientific knowledge organized a revolution of thought and won a war with an ugly Victorian concept of happy, clean and bright love. Miller stated something similar but in a more interesting, artistic and poetic way. He stated that we are animals and need to love each other because love is an answer to everything. Henry Miller’s novel is deeply autobiographical and his heterosexual orientation was used by him to its greatest and fullest expand. “Tropic of Cancer” is a great book because it is real and it is real not only because it is based on real facts, events and people but because it is full of life, full of existence despite Miller’s obsession with death, flesh and lust (Decker & Manniste 113). Some compared “Tropic of Cancer” with a sewer and you may heard that “life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” Mr. Miller put in his masterpiece everything but most of all himself. He talks about lust and death like they are the happiest things. Sometimes he sounds in an absurd way but he reminds his reader that life is a very controversial thing and has a lot of shades, colors and contrasts and all of them are beautiful because each of them is a part of life. Remember Edgar Allan Poe and his dark and obscure poetry which nevertheless is beautiful. “Nothing will avail to offset this virus which is poisoning the whole world. America is the very incarnation of doom. She will drag the whole world down to the bottomless pit.” (Miller 56) The other reason why American people may not appreciated “Tropic of Cancer” is Miller’s hatred and contempt towards America, American Nation as well as all its values, standards, principles and everything that it represents. He hated America so much that he needed to escape from it. He literally and directly states his violent aggression towards foolish, stupid, arrogant and ignorant America which he couldn’t love because of its monotonous and mechanical ugly approach to everything. He described America as a disease and a lot of his books are full of this hate. Writer always criticizes what he knows most in order to make it better. As for Oscar Wilde not only his books but he himself was judged by the miserable Victorian standards of morality which named one of the best minds immoral and put him in a cage. Byron as well as Joyce escaped from their homelands because they could not live there. Another beautiful poet John Keats ended his days in horrible oblivion because of the ignominy of those who surrounded him. And so on and so on… A lot of examples how great minds were treated unfairly can be given but they are not necessary because to understand it one must be intelligent himself and foolishness can be cured only with his own hands. When Allen Ginsberg, first and greatest counter-cultural poet, beatnik and homosexual like Oscar Wilde publically read his greatest work, his magnum opus named “Howl” he became immortal. The significance of this brilliant, impressive, deeply innovative piece of art can’t be overrated because it represented an honest passion and made hear a voice of millions. Interesting to point out that Ginsberg was a real innovator, progressive visioner like William Blake whom he admired greatly (Raskin 17). During his years in Columbian University he with his friends even decided to replace classical books on the stand in the library museum with the books of James Joyce and works like Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and most interestingly Tropic of Cancer (!) These young and innocent rowdyism shows us that Ginsberg admired works that from the classical point of view were considered immoral and wrong because of their authenticity, originality and courage to talk about everything honestly and most of all about sex. I also add that D. H. Lawrence was also considered immoral and his most famous book was banned because of its frankness and candidness. If you seek candidness then there is one more interesting coincidence. I said earlier that Voltaire was mentioned during the court sessions on the matter of “Howl”. His most famous work named “Candid” was exactly the one chosen as an example to show nonsense and absurd of the accusation. Blake, Joyce, Whitman (revolutionary in the sphere of poetry, one of the most if not the greatest), Miller, Voltaire and finally Allen Ginsberg – all of them are rebels of the thought and ideological revolutionary. They fought for the freedom of thought and they battled censorship because they represented honesty and sincerity which are the main criteria of art. Sex in Allen Ginsberg’s life as well as in “Howl” is one of the most important themes. He himself suffered from the problems connected to his orientation because he wasn’t sure about himself and his place in the world. His qualms as well as his following certain public homosexuality helped him to view the world from different perspective and see that a lot of those who are not like everybody else are offended and discriminated. His work as well as his life led to the creation of LGBT movement and further equal rights for the minority of gays. He won not only a battle with censorship which was restraining and suppressing creativity and imagination. Above that he made an important contribution to the appearance of equal rights for gays in the 1960s. Allen Ginsberg continued what other innovators started and he ended with victory in a struggle against inequality because he exposed sex and sexual relationships and stated that any kind of love is a true love which deserves a fair and dignified existence. He created a phenomenon of Beatniks and alongside with William Burroughs (homosexual too) and Jack Kerouac chose new, young and fresh approach to the life instead of senile and infirm old conservative decay. “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 angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night” (Ginsberg 14). Works Cited Decker, J., Manniste, I. “Henry Miller: New Perspectives”, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2015. Ginsberg, A. “Howl and Other Poems”. New York: City Lights Books, 1994. Miller, H. “Tropic of Cancer”, London: Penguin UK, 2014. Raskin, J. “American Scream: Allen Ginsbergs Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation”. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Read More