Allen Ginsberg: "Howl" (1956)

 

Agenda for analysis:

 

Lyric personae:           “I” and “my generation”

                                   Omniscient/prophetic point of view

                                   3rd person lyric personae - individuals and groups

                                   Specific second person addressee: Carl Solomon

                                   Moloch

 

Stylistics/Diction:       Metaphor, some Biblical

                                   Direct address/apostrophe

                                   Repetition structures

                                   Exclamation and declamation

                                   Curses and blessings

                                   Stream of consciousness

                                   The long line (Whitman, the Torah)

 

Thematics:                  Violence and destruction

                                   Madness

                                   Quest for connection

                                   Institutions

                                   Drugs

                                   Travel and exile

 

Themes:                     The individual vs. the system

                                   Apocalypse

                                   Struggle between old and new

                                   Questing/finding

                                   Generations

                                   Identity/community

                                   Holiness

 

Genre/form:              Long poem

                                   Unrhymed poetry
                                   Base + variation

                                   Incantation; rhythmic chant

                                   Manifesto

 

Contexts:                   Generationality

                                  Autobiography/confession/coterie

                                  Biblical (Jewish) intertextuality

                                  Rallying point for identity

                                  Cult status of Ginsberg as prophet

 

Ideas for essays:

 

Allen Ginsberg: “Howl” (1956)

 

Describe the speaker of the poem. How is the speaker’s position in relation to the people, states of mind and places he speaks about? In relation to the reader?

 

What is the effect of Ginsberg’s lyric style?

[Words to characterize it: enthusiastic, declamatory, Whitmanesque, Blakean, Biblical/Old Testament/rabbinical, celebratory, long lined, filled with unusual compounds and predicates, f. ex.: “the negro streets at dawn”; “angelheaded hipsters”, “hydrogen jukebox” etc.]

Find and analyse more unusual examples of micro-level stylistics.

 

Consider Ginsberg’s sense of flow and direct address.

 

Consider the poem's use of location and its techniques of depicting motion.

 

Consider the themes of madness and youth and their linkage with (sub)cultural activity in the poem.