Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg - Book Report/Review Example

Discuss the significance of responsibility and seriousness to Ginsberg’s poetry, in reference to three of his poems, from “Howl and other poems” In the modern world, popular literature has become the centre of focus in many of the important and energetic debates and the poems of Allen Ginsberg offer an effective example of popular literature or the requisition of popular literature into more elite literary forms. To comprehend popular literature, one needs to realise what popular means as well as what literature means. Significantly, “the meanings that have been associated with the term popular include: (1) belonging to the people; (2) low or base; (3) well-liked by many people; (4) deliberately seeking favour or wide approval; (5) inferior (as opposed to quality); (6) past and contemporary literature/culture/art made by the people.... The meanings of literature have included: (1) the writings that constitute polite learning; (2) a body of writing produced by a particular nation; (3) creative or imaginative writing; (4) substantial or important writing; and (5) writing with aesthetic interest that can be classed as art.” (Johnson, 4) In the course of literary history, the term popular literature has acquired greater acceptance due, mainly, to the expansion of definition of literature to include previously excluded varieties of writing. An analysis of the USA in the 1940s and 50s confirms that Allen Ginsberg was a popular poet of the period and he started and continued to be a proponent of a counter culture in the period. Most essentially, it becomes lucid to a serious researcher that there is a common misconception about the concepts responsibility and seriousness which are considered as very significant to Ginsberg’s poetry. A reflective analysis of his several important poems illustrates that such a view is misleading. In fact, an understanding of the tone of Ginsberg’s work Howl and Other Poems, in relation to the received opinion at the time, makes one argue against the proposition that ‘responsibility and seriousness are significant to his poetry’ and there are several substantiating evidences and opinions which prove this argument exactly. Allen Ginsberg has been a popular poet of the 1940s and 50s and he is celebrated as a chief proponent of a counter culture in the period. As against the pessimistic views of Adorno and Horkheimer, what inspired Ginsberg’s poetry is the assumption that popular forms can be effectively used to protest against power and to counter the existing culture. Like the innovative voice of O’Hara as against the more conservative expectations of poetry at the period, Ginsberg’s poetry also helps one to realise the acknowledgement of literary tradition and convention in the popular literature. An understanding of the reception of Howl and Other Poems with particular reference to the obscenity trial that followed its publication helps one to recognise Ginsberg as proponent of a counter culture and as a ferocious opponent of capitalism against the background of the cold war. “...Allen Ginsberg was widely read and heard, and became a popular poet in his poet in his own right... Ginsberg protests against capitalism, consumerism and social inequalities, using autobiography to serve a public purpose... Ginsberg...made claims for poetry as a new and revolutionary force, sought a new audience within the counter-culture, and became a bestseller.” (Asbee, 57-8) Ginsberg, like O’Hara, was not happy with the possibilities of expression offered by the mid twentieth century US poetry. The advent of Howl in 1956 and 1957 established Allen as bright new star in the literary firmament and he was an avant-garde poet. By the time of the production of Howl Allen Ginsberg had achieved great fame and he was able to remain detached from any one fixed identity. This helped him in the production of an extraordinary poem Howl and it presented Ginsberg as the paragon of the protean poet. Ginsberg severely attacked the political role played by America in the world and the American political system at home, though he assumed that he was personally more contented to be an American. Following the success of Howl he became audacious to speak his mind and to articulate the views that he had long held but had not been fervent to broadcast. “Now, he announced that he detested the anti-communist crusade, the American arms industry, and capitalism itself. Readers who read between the lines of Howl might have guessed that he held these views... In Allen’s view, the White House and the Pentagon tolerated “mad dictatorial developments” everywhere on the face of the earth. Of course, he disapproved of Soviet-style mind control and brainwashing, and he rejected official Communist Party ideas about literature and the arts, and about the obligation of the artist to serve the needs of the people.” (Raskin, 192-3) Therefore, Ginsberg depended on the popularity of his poetry to convey his main social, political, and cultural concerns in the background of the cold war. A reflective analysis of the famous poems by Ginsberg substantiates the view that the proposition that ‘responsibility and seriousness are significant to his poetry’ is not valid. Ginsberg was not a poet who regarded responsibility and seriousness as the major features of poetry. Instead, he believed in the spontaneous representation of various situations and historical facts in the most convincing manner. In a close reading of the poem ‘Howl’ one finds several evidences of the poet’s attitudes. Though the poem ‘Howl’ gives an exact view of the personal reflections of the poet, his ‘America’ seems to be more straightforward in comparison. Here, one also finds the finest illustration of the poet’s view of responsibility and seriousness. Like the poem ‘Howl’, there are several autobiographical elements in his ‘America’. “In a line that brings OHara to mind, he is described as poor, possessing two dollars and twenty-seven cents’ on ‘January 17, 1956’, but unlike O’Hara, he refuses to enter into the world of consumerism. It is Time magazine that tells him about responsibility and the commercial world: ‘Business / men are serious. Movie producers are serious. Seriousness has been equated with capitalism, and Ginsberg will take no part in it.” (Asbee, 103) Therefore, Ginsberg realised responsibility and seriousness as features of capitalism and the commercial world and he could never submit to them. He always focused on the depiction of crude realities of modern life through the power of spontaneous representation in poetry. Allen Ginsberg is a poet who made the best use of his popularity in the popular culture in an attempt to convey his main arguments and he belonged to the poets of ‘new poetry’ of the Beats. The Beats challenged expectations of the conventions and the new audience which expected to make their presence through sounds helped its popularity. While the audience participated in the poem shouting and stamping, interrupting and applauding, poetry has become a tangible social force, moving and unifying its individuals. “The audience was young, lively and engaged; its members were likely to describe themselves, and those they admired, as hip. This term, borrowed from the bebop language of 1940s jazz, was chosen specifically to distance the followers of Beat poetry further from the world of conventional poetry application. (Asbee, 81) The shared experience of the Beats, including Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso, was historical and political which based on turbulent changes of their period. The features of the Beat lines can be found in the poems by Ginsberg and the opening lines of his “Howl” illustrate this. “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, / 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...” (Ginsberg, Howl, lines 1-4) The poem “Howl” is one of the major works of Beat Generation and it is dictated to Carl Solomon. It was also initially written as a performance piece and the poem has every feature of the Beat Generation poems. There are several biographical allusions and references throughout the poem which also point out the general characteristics of the piece. A precise knowledge about the background of the poem helps one realise it as a new venture in poetry and as a spontaneous utterance or carefully crafted piece of work. “The effect... is one of spontaneity, but there is also a weight of tradition behind the poem that needs to be recognized; forms familiar from other contexts are retrieved and represented with a sense of urgent modernity... Inspiration is literally the drawing in of breath. A lone voice crying in the wilderness, prophesying and lamenting is intimately linked to the notion of spontaneous utterance, significantly emphasizing the spoken word rather than the written.” (Asbee, 90) A careful reading of the first part of the poem helps the reader in finding evidences of the poet’s attitudes. In his poem “America”, Ginsberg identifies himself with the nation and the conflict is entirely internalised and here one finds the best illustration of his opposition to responsibility and seriousness. He mentions that he has been obsessed by the contents in Time Magazine which remind him of responsibility. He also gathers that all Americans are serious and it is the idea that conveyed by televisions and other media. At this point, he makes a very significant proclamation that he is not serious. “Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? / I’m obsessed by Time Magazine. / I read it every week. / Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. / I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. ‘It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessman are serious. / Movie producers are serious. Everybodys serious but me. / It occurs to me that I am America. / I am talking to myself again.” (Ginsberg, 40-1) Here, Ginsberg identifies himself with the nation and there is major internalised conflict in the poet. He challenges America as if it were an inner voice. Everybody in America wants him to be serious and responsible and he declares that he is ‘sick of your insane demands’. He is obsessed with the failure of the nation to cherish him and to meet his needs and therefore ha has internalised the very shortcomings of his own parents. “The language of the poem conveys the very processes by which societal values that the speaker rejects intrude upon his censure. Even the wit with which he distances himself from his own obsessions as he describes himself hiding in a basement with the despised yet luring symbols of success imprinted in Time does not prevent him from incorporating societys view of him as an obsessed megalomaniac who talks to himself.” (Daemmrich and Trommler, 217) In fact, the poet was never interested in both responsibility and seriousness and the proposition that ‘responsibility and seriousness are significant to his poetry’ is found deficient to prove the point. An understanding of the poems “Howl” and “America” substantiates that the basic nature of these poems is humour and there are significant evidences to prove this. “Like Howl, America is not without humour: It occurs to me that I am America. / I am talking to myself again’ marks a turning point in the poem as well as raising a smile. The lines that begin the next sentence can be read as following directly on, so that ‘me’ is actually America: ‘Asia is rising against me... The last twelve strophes of the poem are satirical. War is something that Russia and China want, not America; oil is an issue...’” (Asbee, 103) Therefore, the poet makes use of the humorous and satirical tone, rather than the serious and responsible tone, in order to prove his points. The contribution of O’Hara and Ginsberg in presenting a new way to poetry in America cannot be ignored and Ginsberg had his essential ways to prove his points. “O’Hara and Ginsberg have both been credited with creating new voices for US poetry, and yet each is quite different from the other... Ginsberg is declamatory, much less ironic than O’Hara, and passionate about his beliefs. It would be more accurate to say that the new US poetry of the mid- twentieth century was distinguished from what went before by a new plurality of voices – and clearly mass culture played a large part in shaping these.” (Asbee, 104) Ginsberg’s poems represent and deplore the mechanized world and its methods and the poet made the best use of the popular form of poetry. In conclusion, an analysis of Ginsberg’s poems proves that he belongs to the kind of poets who made the best use of popular literature in order to convey his ideas. Allen Ginsberg was a popular poet of his period and he became a proponent of a counter culture in his time. A reflective analysis of the pomes in his work Howl and Other Poems points to the common misconception about the concepts responsibility and seriousness. It is often maintained that responsibility and seriousness are very significant to Ginsberg’s poetry. However, a clear understanding of his several important poems illustrate that such a view is misleading. In short, the tone of Ginsberg’s in relation to the received opinion at the time makes proves that the proposition ‘responsibility and seriousness are significant to his poetry’ is not valid to factual evidences. Works Cited Asbee, Sue. “The poetry of Frank O’Hara and Allen Ginsberg.” The popular & the canonical: debating twentieth-century literature 1940-2000. David Johnson. (Ed). London: Routledge. 2005. P 57-8. Daemmrich, Horst S and Frank Trommler. Thematics reconsidered: essays in honour of Horst S. Daemmrich. Rodopi. 1995. P 217. Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl.” Howl, and Other Poems. William Carlos Williams (Ed). City Lights Books. 1956. P 9. Johnson, David. “Introduction to Part I.” The popular & the canonical: debating twentieth-century literature 1940-2000. David Johnson. (Ed). London: Routledge. 2005. P 4. Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2004. P 192-3. Read More