Leave it to Ginsberg: A Preemptive Strike on 1950s Society

A Response to Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg published Howl in 1957 — one year before American television would broadcast Leave it to Beaver, and America would beam to the homes of its nation its personification of American values and the American family.

With Ginsberg’s iconic first line, he refers to his generation as “…my generation destroyed by madness…” (page 1). If we approach Howl through the lens of deconstruction, we see that this is his battle cry. The greatest minds of his generation — the downtrodden, the nonconformists, the Beats — were destroyed, driven mad by the oppressive American ideals and standards of normality.

Like all great poets, Ginsberg uses the power of the word, and every word is important in Howl. His words are camouflage for the subversive, and he screams, or howls, rather, for those that will fight for and embrace what is the other, perhaps more so to embrace the joy of being and living as the American other. Howl brings to light for the 1950s mainstream that we are all Americans, but we are not all the same Americans, and that is wonderful. That difference is worth celebration, a reason to howl. This celebration of the nonconformist is what constitutes a normal act for Howl; we all are in search of a fix, but it is normal that no one’s fix is the same. Howl is poetry that speaks for the ideology of a free society, that we not be forced to conform. Howl gives a voice to the other, the one that stands and lives among the preconceived notion of a normal American, the one walking the streets right beside you. 

Being that Howl is largely autobiographical, it is still meant to be poetry that is all encompassing of the nonconformist movements of 1950s American culture — that one person who lives a lifestyle found in Howl, a mad person, a homosexual person. Only one of these things by itself is what makes it blatantly obscene, and that it can be charged in a court by the standards of that decade should still be incredibly alarming today. The idea of celebrating one’s differences, be they sexual orientation, political views, or joie de vivre — anything that does not align with or question the moralist American view of God, Country, Family, is fair game for charges of obscenity. This should scare the hell out of you, because most of your political leaders, ruling judges, and other powers at be, they were raised in the image of the Cleavers. They loved that show. 

Discussion Questions

1. Imagine if Howl would have been deemed obscene by the courts. How much of a setback do you think it would be for today's civil rights?
2. A lot of literary scholars say that Howl changed the world, that it was a cataclysmic event in American culture. What other symbolism from Howl is relevant to the subculture of today? (e.g. Industrial Revolution, the Cold War, etc.)
3. Considering that we're currently studying Howl at the college level, and being that obscenity is so completely subjective to define, at what age or grade level should we able to teach Howl in schools?