'Howl' By Allen Ginsberg

Howl by Allen Ginsberg is an extraordinary poem, whose author started off most of the post-modernism era. Allen Ginsberg wrote Howl for his own enjoyment and never assumed it would be published. So while writing this poem he said the most outrageous, scandalous things of that time that he would of never written for a crowd or audience. This is what makes the poem so interesting.

The poem has one main perspective and that is Ginsberg himself, but in a whole it is written as the perspective of the early Beat generation, which mostly consists of Allen and his friends. Perspective is defined as the identity of the narrative voice, the person through which the reader experiences the story. He uses tone, the “attitude” of the speaker conveyed through the language of the piece, to show his perspective. Ginsberg goes through a first-person narrative, but uses some third-person perspectives of the generation. There are three sections in this book that divide up Ginsberg’s perspectives and motives. In Part I he stats, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix. In Part II he says, “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?” Finally Part III starts, “Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am.” You can see the difference in tone, perspectives and themes in the three passages. Each section is extremely symbolism, the use of specific objects or images to represent abstract ideas, in its own way.

The structure of the poem is written in free verse, much like Walt Whitman. Free verse has very few distinct rules or boundaries. It is similar to blank verse in that it does not rhyme, but unlike blank verse, it is not written in iambic pentameter. The rhythm of free verse varies throughout this poem and the words flow along their own pattern, even though they don’t rhyme. An example I like from the text is, “Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.”

Ginsberg’s use of diction is quite captivating, it’s as if he is inventing his own words and new, exciting uses for mundane ones. To me the language creates a whole new world of images and events that are usually kept hidden. This kind of imagery is constant in Howl. I think the entire poem uses this literary device, using words to create visual and sound imagery. One sentence that sticks out to me and fits in to how I see his use of words as a new language is, “Yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars.”

A lot of different things, symbols, themes and images are significant in Ginsberg’s poem Howl. I think the most significant parts of this poem are the parts the Ginsberg can directly relate with, that show his personality and life style that not many knew about. He puts everything into his poetry, no matter how personal making it truly great.

Howl is one of the few poems are really enjoyed. It brings out this raw aspect of a certain era that who thought so different from yours, but it all actuality it’s not all that different from some of the current culture. This piece of writing is truly captivating writing and quite fun to read.

The Sun Also Rises and The Avant-Garde

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is representative of the Avant Garde movement in American Literature, which took place in the early 1900’s and is known as the Lost Generation. Robert Cohn says to Jake, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” Near the beginning of World War I, many young adults felt their lives had no purpose or significance. Here, Cohn worries that he is unimportant and wasting his life away. This shows the discontent of the Lost Generation and how it is all in the way they perceive their world.

Avant-Garde means new and unusual or experimental ideas. Avant-garde artists wanted to go outside the normal way of looking at things. The new style was meant to bring out creativity and imagination by creating a whole new era of art in culture. The avant-garde reconstituted the accepted cultural order, valued fragments and unexpected juxtapositions, erotic, exotic, incongruous, the unconscious, the spontaneous, the primitive, and the irrational were prized (“Seacoast”). The settings in this novel take place all over beautiful, exotic locations in Europe, such as Paris and Pamplona, showing part of its Avant-Garde features. Most essentially, the avant-garde explores through aesthetic disruption and innovation the possibilities of creating new art forms and languages, which will bring forth new modes of perceiving, expressing, and acting (McNeill). In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway says, “The end of the line. All trains finish there. They don't go on anywhere," this quote shows the style of the Avant-garde completely. It’s abstract and makes you try to imagine what Hemingway is trying to achieve.

"You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see. You hang around cafés." Most Avant-Garde artists were expatriates, Americans living overseas in foreign countries and this reflects Hemingway’s life overseas in Paris. The avant-garde wishes to transform society and develops a critical attitude toward the dominant values of the given culture. They are determined to create new roles and values in a traditional society in order to give way to their new generation. (“Seacoast”)

"Isn't it pretty to think so? This is the last sentence in The Sun Also Rises and is a perfect ending to an Avant-Garde novel. It gives you only the surface of the story, leaving the rest up to your imagination or what you believe to be going on. The story gives you a new way to see this sort of life and keep you wondering in the end about the unfolding events. The book is about the characters and their relationship with each other and how they are defined as a person in different views or how they define themselves.

Works Citied

"The Avant-Garde." Seacost. University of Sunderland, Web. 20 Oct 2009. .

McNeill, Tony. "Avant Garde and Modernism," Seacost. 26/04/2001. University of Sunderland, Web. 17 Sept 2009. .

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Throughout the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie grows through each one of her many relationships. They are what affect her the most and add to her defining personality. The first relationship you see is Janie and her grandmother, Nanny. Her Grandmother was born into slavery and dreamt of a better life for her. Nanny wants Janie to be in a secure situation before she dies, but Janie has different dreams. “The thousand sister calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree . . .” This shows Janie want of her own life, where she is respected and seen as an equal. This ideal of love and fulfillment is at the center of Janie’s quest throughout the book.

Janie gives in to her grandmother’s wishes, not wanting to disappoint or worry her. She marries Logan Killicks, who can provide for Janie. She knows that she doesn’t love Logan but assumes that she will love him eventually. Her and Logan begin to fight and Janie says that he expects her to worship him but that she never will.

Later she meets Jody. He has big dreams and exudes possibility and freedom. Janie sees Jody as her way to reach her horizon. “Janie knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making,” This shows Janie’s uncertainty about her fate or her decisions. She doesn’t know what to expect with running of with Jody and his dreams. Also, this shows Janie’s youthful romantic desires. She is willing to give up her secure, dull life for any form of change.

Later on, he tries to shape her into his image of the type of woman that he wants and Janie has to distance herself from her emotions to survive living with Jody’s rules. He makes her put up her hair by saying, “skeered some de rest of us mens might touch it round dat store,” showing his control over her. His power restricts her and she loses some of her strong personality. When Jody gets sick and dies Janie reasserts her identity by letting down her long hair becoming the sensual woman she was denied of from Jody.

As Janie enjoys her newfound freedom of speech, she becomes more introspective and self-aware. She then meets Tea Cake and sees that he could be her way to reach the horizon. The narrator says, “Every day after that they managed . . . to talk . . ..” this shows the respect he has for her and that their relationship is on a more intimate level Janie hasn’t experienced yet.

With Jody, silence was seen as Janie’s weakness, but now silence is becoming Janie’s strength. “They sat in company with the others . . . They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God,” This quote reflects how Tea Cake has affected Janie’s growth and strength. His presence helps her to encounter the storm boldly and survive.

Tea Cake’s death reflects how much Janie has grown as a person and how secure she has become. With this new strength she was able to save her own life instead of giving in to Tea Cake’s disoriented rage. During the trial they say, “It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.” Her strength has gown beyond fear and pity gossip. Now, she only wishes for recognition for her love of Tea Cake and her acquired courage. Janie realizes that suffering and sacrifice are necessary for self-discovery. In the end, Janie is “Pulling in her horizon.” She finally achieves her goal and dreams. She has found true love, which has enabled her to find her own voice.

Gertrude Stein

Stein: “In Tender Buttons and then on and on I struggled with the ridding myself of nouns, I knew nouns must go in poetry as they had gone in prose if anything that is everything was to go on meaning something. And so I went on with this exceeding struggle of knowing really knowing what a thing was really knowing it knowing anything I was seeing anything I was feeling so that its name could be something, by its name coming to be a thing in itself as it was but would not be anything just and only as a name” (242).

Stein is known to be the precursor to Language Poetry. Language poetry began with the Avant Garde movement, these group of writers wanted to create a new way of looking at the world and the objects in it. This explains what Stein is saying in her quote. By getting rid of nouns she gives you no concrete or common image when you read her poetry. By ridding her writing of nouns, but still describing a thing so you know it. She tries to get people to see things in a different perspective, to go against the norm, the accepted description or function of an item.

In the poem A Box Stein’s opening line is, “A large box is handily made of what is necessary to replace any substance.” Here she creates a box how she sees and knows the object. In another poem with the same title, A Box, she writes, “Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle.” This shows the many different, abstract ways Stein can create one object. Stein uses cubism in her writings, like Picasso in his art. Cubism is a method of distorting reality, focusing on shapes and composite parts of an object. She is a definite Avant Garde poet. She experiments with words mixing them around in confusing sequence to create something complete different from its original meaning. She throws away old traditions to rebel against common thoughts and meanings. In her poems in Tender Buttons she takes an object and describes what her she thinks is its true meaning, what it really is. Instead of describing it as you see it in real form.

If language is a window to experience, then language poetry has the opposite effect. Stein looks for the material nature of words, the materiality, character of being matter or a visible, bland object. Language poets insist on the medium and its distance from what we are inclined to think of as “natural.” Instead, in language poetry, it can frustrate the readers experience for linear development. The overall goal of language poetry is to interrogate, subvert, or exaggerate the effects of formal logic and linguistic structures. It demonstrates how those structures have a determining influence on what we see, how we behave, and who we think we are

* The quotes from Tender Buttons have no page numbers due to using the online book from your post