Allen Ginsberg's Howl

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Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" is a landmark mid-20th-century American poem of the Beat Generation, renowned for its raw, prophetic style and searing critique of modern industrial society.

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Label Occurrences
Allen Ginsberg's Howl canonical 1

Statements (52)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Beat Generation work
poem
author Allen Ginsberg NERFINISHED
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
culturalStatus iconic text of the Beat Generation
landmark of 20th-century American poetry
dedicatedTo Carl Solomon NERFINISHED
editor Lawrence Ferlinghetti NERFINISHED
firstPublicationYear 1956
firstPublicReadingDate 1955-10-07 GENERATED
firstPublicReadingPlace Six Gallery, San Francisco NERFINISHED
firstPublishedIn Howl and Other Poems NERFINISHED
form free verse
genre Beat poetry
confessional poetry
hasSection Footnote to Howl NERFINISHED
Part I
Part II NERFINISHED
Part III
influenced American counterculture of the 1960s
confessional poetry movement
contemporary performance poetry
influencedBy Walt Whitman NERFINISHED
William Blake NERFINISHED
biblical cadences
jazz improvisation
language English
legalCase People v. Ferlinghetti NERFINISHED
legalOutcome ruled not obscene
legalSignificance expanded freedom of expression for literature in the United States
literaryMovement Beat Generation NERFINISHED
meter non-metrical
notableFeature explicit references to homosexuality
use of taboo language
notableImage Moloch as symbol of destructive industrial civilization
openingLine I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
publisher City Lights Books NERFINISHED
sectionCount 3
setting postwar American urban landscape
structure three main sections and a footnote
style anaphora and repetition
long-breathed lines
oral, performative delivery
prophetic tone
subjectOf obscenity trial in the United States
theme alienation in urban life
conformity and repression
critique of modern industrial society
drug use and altered states
madness and sanity
sexual freedom
spiritual quest

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Moloch appearsIn Allen Ginsberg's Howl