Howl

Howl ( German The howling ) is the most famous poem by the American writer Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg was wearing it in public for the first time on October 7, 1955 in the Six Gallery in San Francisco. It is dedicated to Carl Solomon, the Ginsberg had met in a psychiatric hospital.

It is an outstanding poem of the Beat Generation.

Content

Howl consists of three parts and a " footnote ". The first part is the longest and best-known; the other parts and the footnote arose only after the first lecture.

The first part is introduced with

And then moves into a series of scenes - often connected with Relative Clauses - continued. These scenes containing both autobiographical and biographical passages from the life of the Beat Generation as well as abstract and metaphysical and religious symbolism. Recurring themes are drugs, jazz music and madness in the context of the United States of America in the 1950s. The verses do not rhyme, but are held together by the sound of the words. Here Ginsberg also used slang words:

In a corresponding lecture this part actually acts like a long howl or a lamentation. It is also inspired by the Jewish Kaddish, a takeover which Ginsberg in his second poetic masterpiece Kaddish explicitly repeated later.

The second part after the action of the first, the question of who or what is responsible for the misery described:

The answer is Moloch, which is now occupied by various attributes. Interpretations suggest Moloch often than the big city, but also as the money or capitalism. In the poem, but this remains open, especially Moloch also appears as a metaphysical and psychic power:

After the direct accusations and curses of Moloch in the second part of the third part is determined by a more conciliatory tone. It opens with a direct address to Carl Solomon, which is located in the asylum Rockland. The repeated after each verse incantation is

While the speaker increases to ever more fantastic visions which end in the collapse of the walls of Rockland and a kind of return of the person addressed.

The Footnote to Howl is the repeated word holy ( sacred ) is determined and speaks, in comparison to the poem very optimistic, everything that happens sacred:

Judicial dispute

1957 the police seized 520 copies of the book Howl and other poems, in which the poem was published. Against publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti been charged. In particular, the line

Was considered obscene. Ferlinghetti was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, and after listening to a number of literary scholars said the court Ferlinghetti free and approved the poem an outstanding social importance. Through the process, it has been reported nationwide over the, the poem and the author won great fame.

Allusions

The poem contains a variety of references and sometimes not easily intelligible allusions. The document also Ginsberg's lover Neal Cassady (as "NC" ), Ginsberg's poetic model of William Blake, but also Plotinus and others. Also on the Holocaust is played. A comprehensive list can be found in the English article.

Others

Ginsberg mediated sometimes have the impression to have written the poem in a short time in a state of intoxication. This could be refuted; in fact, he worked for several months, maybe even years, to the work. It is amazing that it still feels like a sudden, self-contained emotional outburst.

2010, the film was released Howl of U.S. directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who illustrated the poem in an animation sequence, and the process and its leading events in a fictional documentary shows.

In the film adaptation of Burroughs' Naked Lunch occurs significantly leaning against Ginsberg person who is working on a similar poem Howl.

The text has often been reinterpreted and also parodies.

Expenditure

• Howl and other Poems. City Light Books, San Francisco div years, ISBN 0-87286-017-5 ( reprints of the original edition, English)
• Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Editions .... HarperPerennial, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-06-092611-2 ( comprehensive and bestkommentierte edition, English)
• Allen Ginsberg: poems. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-499-23675-3 (contains German translation The howling )
• Howl ( with Eric Drooker ). Harper Perennial; Original edition 2010, ISBN 0-06-201517-6.