The Greatest Minds of Our Generation?

Last week in Literature of California, we started out looking at the rise of suburbia in post-World War II California and the irony of a place traditionally seen as wild, unfettered, and non-conformist also giving birth to the ultimate symbol of conformity: the faceless suburb. We also watched an episode of "Father Knows Best" to understand how this idea of the "perfect nuclear family" permeated American culture with the advent of the "television age".

We used this understanding to help set up a world in which the Beat Generation arises as a resistant voice to the seemingly pervasive attitude of conformity of the 1950's. We watched an early episode of  "The Twilight Zone" in which Rod Sterling challenges the selling points of suburban life (family, trust, safety, etc.) with an ironic and critical eye. This then led to a quick overview of the Beat Generation, what they stood for, as well as the famous people and landmarks of the movement.

One cannot really talk about the Beat Generation without mentioning Allen Ginsberg's 1955 epic poem Howl. Inspired by a vision Ginsberg had while taking the hallucinogenic drug peyote, the poem has come to symbolize the ethics and style of Beat poetry. The poem, which features explicit references to drug use and sexuality (both heterosexual and homosexual), was deemed "obscene" and when Lawrence Ferlinghetti sold the poem at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the store manager was arrested and all copies of the poem were seized. The charges were challenged and eventually the case reached the California Supreme Court where, in 1957, the charges were overturned and the poem was deemed to have "redeeming social importance".

It is one thing to read Howl, but another thing to hear it from Ginsberg's own mouth. For this week's blog post, I want students to watch/listen to Howl as read by Ginsberg himself back in 1959 in Chicago. It is a long poem and I think best experienced if you have the poem itself in front of you as well. You can find a copy of the poem here. After you have listened to and read the poem, write a 1-2 paragraph reflection in which you discuss your thoughts on the poem, what impressions it made on you, and specific lines that you found particularly interesting and/or memorable. Enjoy!