Ginsberg Howl Counterculture

The Beat Generation was America’s first real counterculture movement of the 20th century, preceding movements such as the Hippies of the of 1970’s. Though at their core, these two groups maintained a similar desire for rebellion or protest against the American norms of materialism and superficiality, they differed significantly in the expression of such sentiment. The Hippies took more of a passive role, proclaiming ideals such as peace and love through music and drugs, but the Beats actively expressed their disgust with society with very different mediums, literature and poetry. One of the greatest pieces of Beat Generation literature was Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, written in 1955. Written in three distinct parts, the poem made clear Ginsberg’s

This publication of this book of poetry would engross the nation with Howl and ultimately the entire Beat Generation movement. This fascination stemmed from the discussion of obscenity that centered around the book, something which was argued in court. The defendants were Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of City Lights, and Shigeyosi Murao, an employee at the store. This discussion began when Murao sold a copy of Howl to “two undercover police officers from the San Francisco Police Juvenile Squad” (Shig’s Dream Job). The trial was covered nationally, reaching the front pages of various popular newspapers and magazines. Ultimately, Howl was determined as not obscene under the First Amendment, a decision which would help set precedent for later issues of obscenity and

In a time of extreme duress, especially given the backdrop of the battle of ideologies and thought that manifested itself in the Cold War, the freshness of the Beat movement as a response to this stringency was a radical, but appreciated, deviation from the norms. The belief that the “political belonged again in the poetic vernacular” became realized - finally, the real world could manifest itself within poetry once more. Rather than shy away with radical surrealism, Ginsberg’s Howl brutally depicted the horrors of reality. In a sense, truth was stranger than fiction here, embodying “a structure of feeling-youthful, dissatisfied, rebellious.” Truly, Howl captured the zeitgeist of the dissatisfied of the time. Ginsberg did something that many others could not necessarily match; he redefined a generation of poetry with his unique take on the world. He acted as a voice for the people that he identified with, merging their politics and ideals into something more palpable and real, something that would constitute the goals of the Beat Generation as a