Howl

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1956

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Historical Context

Allen Ginsberg, along with friends including William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso, rose to fame in the postwar era not only by rejecting mainstream American ideals like capitalism but by inspiring a counterculture revolution known as the Beat Movement. The Beats enacted a social and literary reckoning with much of their initial output taking place in the 1940s and 50s. They sought refuge against US capitalism, patriarchal mores, and “stuffy” writing tinged with artifice by seeking authentic expression in all things. Ginsberg championed their seemingly frenetic writing style with the phrase “First Thought, Best Thought,” suggesting that spontaneity was the hallmark of honest writing and living (Ginsberg did, however, revise both “Howl” and “Kaddish” for publication). Though Beat poets and their circle of influence frequented several major cities, they’re known for establishing a community in San Francisco and the greater Bay area, with their nexus being the historic City Lights Bookstore co-owned by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021).

The Beats wrote from their own experiences; many fueled their lives and their writing through drug use, vision quests, sexual liberation, travel, and spiritual relativism. The Beats also weren’t afraid to talk about deeply personal issues like mental illness and sexual encounters. “Howl,” for instance, mentions mental illness, hospital stays, casual sexual encounters, and suicide attempts—topics that would be taboo in earlier literary movements like New Criticism. Many scholars view Beat poetry as a reaction against the ordered and polished style of New Criticism. New Criticism ruled the first half of the 20th century with poetry that eschewed emotion and outside influence. For a New Critic, even the poet’s own biography shouldn’t influence the autonomy of the poem/work. Beat poetry countered this “stuffy” style of writing with emotional, expansive verse and myriad symbols from a host of outside sources.

Beat poetry, in particular, incorporated various aspects from different cultures/movements, including the jazz (bebop) and blues of the time, surrealist and metaphysical poetry, and Eastern religion/spiritualism and poetics. “Howl” is an exemplar of Beat poetry, infused with references to jazz, blues, spirituality, religion, and other examples of Black America. Ginsberg read the piece as a sort of manifesto during the Beats’s now legendary first major public reading in 1955 at Six Gallery in San Francisco; the poem urged a social awakening and a break from America’s destructive status quo tendencies.

Many aspects of the Beat Movement went hand in hand—a drug trip (sometimes abroad) would reveal visions infused with religious and spiritual symbols. Travel buddies were also friends and sexual partners, sexual partners were spiritual and literary advisors, and so on. Many Beat tenets would later inspire the free love aesthetic of the Hippie Movement (even in 2021, people confuse Beats with Hippies and use the terms interchangeably as slurs for “lazy” writers or people).

“Howl” garnered both critical acclaim and infamy immediately upon publication. In 1957, Ginsberg endured a sensational legal case involving “Howl” for obscenity charges, but the presiding judge eventually found redeeming social value in the poem. Both the trial and the verdict caused “Howl” to rise to even greater fame amongst its public audience.

Rhetorical Context

“Howl,” as its name suggests, is a personal lament. The word “howl” is also onomatopoetic, meaning it’s a word that literally sounds like what it describes. Readers mimic the sound of howling when saying the title, thus linking reader and author together in the creation of a lament. The Beat poets favored poetry sit-ins and communal readings. These intimate sessions leveled the field between author and listener and provided an immediacy to the work. Ginsberg recreates this immediacy in “Howl” by implementing rhetorical devices to show and tell.

“Howl” is also an example of elegiac poetry, which is lyric poetry utilizing a meditative tone to express grief for a fallen public or private figure. In its broader meaning, elegiac poetry ruminates on human mortality—a thematic element running throughout “Howl.” One of the poem’s alternate titles, “A Howl for Carl Solomon,” underscores the personal nature of the poem and its thematic reach. Carl Solomon and Ginsberg met at the Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Institute while undergoing therapy. This poem is therefore dedicated to Ginsberg’s close friend who, like his mother, dealt with mental illness; it details personal experiences navigating mental, cultural, and spiritual decay. This decay affected not only Solomon and Ginsberg, but an entire generation of movers and thinkers who grappled with defining humanity within systems of oppression. The so-called Beat Generation sprang from a resistance to this decay. The frenzied rhetoric of Ginsberg’s lines mirrors his internal state while writing the poem. When read out loud, the lines offer readers a peek into this frenzy, or overwhelming anxiety, Ginsberg felt while seeing his friends and loved ones destroyed by what he considered coldhearted, state-sanctioned systems.

Though it shouldn’t be common practice to equate the narrator of a poem with its author, Ginsberg welcomes this approach by invoking the names of close friends and the places in which he lived and/or traveled, thus grounding his eyewitness experience in “Howl” with concrete details. Ginsberg also explicitly places himself in the poem—most notably in Line 72 when he mentions that neither he nor Carl are safe from life’s machinations—as a rhetorical device to bolster his ethos as a chronicler of destruction.