The Beats through a Critical Lens - Essay Example

For this paper you will choose any text by any “Beat” out of the Portable Beat Reader. You will choose a lens (strategy) with which you feel comfortable to explore that piece. Your focus will be on what analysis your lens (strategy) lends to your text! This will be the focus of the assignment.  The poem Howl was written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955. It was published as a piece of his 1956 poetry collection called Howl and Other Poems. The poem reached fame by becoming part of the ‘Beat Generation’ that included other authors and poets like William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac etc. in it. The poem Howl might seem disorganized, disoriented, but in fact it is unorthodoxly organized and delivers the message with a ‘beat’. The critical lens worn by the poet is cultural, Marxist and based on gender. He does not believe in confirming to the rules of the society. The poem has three parts and each part has an extended periods about one topic. The first part is the longest. The poem seems as if composed of three extremely long run-on sentences. The structure of the point might look unorthodox but it is essential to deliver the message. A footnote accompanies the three parts of the poem. The first part of the poem delivers the background. The cultural critique lens paints the perfect base to talk about different scenes and characters. It also tells different situations out of Ginsberg’s own life which includes; jazz musicians, junkies, political fanatics and even mental patients that he met during 1940s and 50s. Ginsbergs call these people undersold renegades. “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,” (Ginsberg 62) The first part is constructed with a single run-on sentence that has frequent pauses. Probably the speaker has to take breaths between the speeches. The beat of the poem is drenched in satire and dark sarcasm. Ginsberg points the finger at that conformist society. The society that is oppressively materialistic. The mind always pays attention to the unusual. Probably for this reason Ginsberg uses graphic detail and openly discusses drug abuse and homosexual relationships at many points in the poem. This kind of attention is necessary to make the readers look through his cultural lens. Many lines of the poem have the fixed base of “who”. It seems as if this word is the perfect connector that generates the beat. It is probably what the musicians call the metronome. It stays at the end of one intervention and marks the beginning of another, creating the perfect beat to the satirical poem. The second part of the point talks about the industrial civilization; “Moloch”. Ginsberg considered the time during peyote induced consciousness where poet sees a huge repulsive appearance of hotel façade. The poet recalls this figure the biblical idol in Leviticus. Canaanites sacrificed their children to this idol. The poet finds this extremely perverse. The society worships false idols. People feel safe by confirming because they are then welcomed by the society. Ginsberg thinks that the characters he portrayed in the first part of the poem must be sacrificed to this deity. Moloch is the name of fierce demon in Fritz Lang’s movie Metropolis. Most of the lines in the second part of this poem have the metronome of “Moloch”. This word creates the beat that keeps everything within sync and rhythm. The third part is the affirmation of the lamb and its glory. It addresses Carl Solomon, the man Ginsberg meets during his brief encounter at the mental hospital during 1949, named ‘Rockland’ in the poem. In reality this place is Columbia Presbyterian and Psychological Institute. Compared to the previous part this part is upbeat and affirms that the poet is with someone in the ward. The lens shows that the renegades can have their own culture. When people like Ginsberg and Solomon get together, they are no longer alone. The footnote is the closing part of the point and has a repetitive ‘holy’ metronome in it. It has a religious flavor to it. Ginsberg thinks that it has a direct correlation to the second part of the point. For instance the ending part of the point talks about the speaker’s dream where Solomon walks from New York to the cottage in California. The implication here is that they will both be reunited. The poet wants to create a culture parallel to the mainstream. As explained earlier in the paper that obscenity and graphical details are one of the best tools a writer or poet has. They catch the audience’s attention immediately. It is always a craft to be able to use these weapons because the overuse destroys reputation of the author. In the case of Ginsberg however, the reference to drugs and sexual intercourse, especially the homosexual part, has been played perfectly that captures the imagination and raises eyebrows of the critics at the same time. It is also a form of notoriety that gives fame to the poem; a technique of magnifying the critical lens. When an author explains an experience he has not experienced, discredits that experience. In the case of Ginsberg’s Howl, there is no such thing. Because when he talks about hallucinations and other euphoric drugs he talks out of experience; “Who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake” (Ginsberg 62) Different references to Ginsbergs own life make their way to the poem. For instance he was expelled from his university for writing obscene literature. He talks about this incident in his poem getting him credit from both the critics and the readers. In a sense the poem is like a rebellious rock song. The rockstars point fingers and shout their anger at the forces of status quo, in this case Ginsberg writes a poem for the same purpose. He raises his voice against confirming and mundane social norms that are too narrow for his vibrant life. Sometimes it appears that the poem is too personal for an ordinary person to understand. All the more reason to believe the critical lens. It is because probably Ginsberg never intended the poem would see such mainstream fame. The personal references are probably best understood and explained by his close friends and acquaintances. The poem is dedicated to Carl Solomon the person he met at a psychiatric ward. From a technical perspective the point have very few comma words. For instance when the poem says “Starving hysterical naked” (Ginsberg 62), these words are not separated by commas which makes the reader reads them faster than usual. This is the beat of the poem where the poet wants the readers to read the whole sentence in one breath as if there is a specific way to taste this dish otherwise the person will not get its true essence. The lens of the poem is cultural and Marxist. It questions the norm of the society and the narrow conformist ideas that people are fed every day of their lives. It talks about putting the best minds in cages. The culture lens justifies the use of drugs because the best minds are in fact looking for an angry fix which is why they resort to drugs. It takes the edge off their frustration and anger, and calms them down. They become more likable for the society this way. The alternative is something that the society will not be able to deal with. The lens of this poem critiques the culture, drenched in sarcasm. It describes the culture, discusses it and rips apart the loop holes in it. The poet speaks out of experience. No one can claim that the poet is not aware of what hes talking about. He has been to drug induced hallucinations and to the psychiatric hospital, he has troubles as a normal functioning part of the society. It is more like a rebellious song, a critique to the social norms. References Ginsberg, Allen. "Howl." The Portable Beat Reader. By Ann Charters. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking, 1992. 62-70. Print. Read More