Howl

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The Howling, German first edition, Limes, Wiesbaden 1959

Howl (German Das Geheul ) is the best-known poem by the American writer Allen Ginsberg . Ginsberg performed it publicly for the first time on October 7, 1955 at the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco . It is dedicated to colleague and friend Carl Solomon , whom Ginsberg met at the New York State Psychiatric Institute .

It is considered an outstanding poem of the Beat Generation .

content

Howl consists of three parts and a “footnote”. The first part is the longest and most famous; the other parts and the footnote were created after the first lecture.

The first part is introduced with

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
(German: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, emaciated hysterically naked, as they dragged themselves through the negro streets at dawn in search of an angry syringe )

and then continues in a series of scenes - often connected as relative clauses . These scenes contain autobiographical and biographical passages from the life of the Beat Generation as well as abstract metaphysical and religious symbolism . Recurring themes include drugs , jazz, and madness against the backdrop of the United States in the 1950s . The verses do not rhyme but are held together by the sound of the words. Ginsberg also uses slang words:

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars

In a corresponding lecture, this part actually looks like a long howl or a lament . It is also modeled on the Jewish Kaddish , a takeover that Ginsberg later explicitly repeated in his second major poetic work, Kaddish .

The second part , after the complaint of the first, asks who or what is responsible for the misery described:

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
(German: Which cement and aluminum sphinx opened their skulls and devoured their brains and imagination? )

The answer is Moloch , which is now assigned various attributes. Interpretations often interpret Moloch as the big city , but also as money or capitalism . In the poem, however, this remains open, especially since Moloch also appears as a metaphysical and psychological power:

Moloch, who entered my soul early! Moloch, in whom I am a consciousness without a body!
(German: Moloch, which penetrated my soul early! Moloch, in which I am a consciousness without a body! )

After the direct accusations and curses of Moloch in the second part, the third part has a more conciliatory tone. He opens with a direct address to Carl Solomon, who is in the Rockland Asylum . The invocation repeated after each verse is

I'm with you in Rockland

while the speaker climbs to ever more fantastic visions that end in the collapse of the walls of Rockland and a kind of homecoming of the addressee.

The footnote to Howl is determined by the repeated word holy (holy) and speaks, compared to the poem very optimistically , everything that happens holy:

Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!

Court dispute

In 1957, police confiscated 520 copies of the book Howl and other poems , in which the poem was published. The publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was charged. In particular the line

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy
(German: who let themselves be fucked in the ass by holy motorcyclists and screamed with joy )

was considered obscene . Ferlinghetti was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union , and after hearing several literary scholars, the court acquitted Ferlinghetti and gave the poem outstanding social significance. Through the process, which was reported nationwide, the poem and the author became well known.

Allusions

The poem contains a large number of references and allusions that are sometimes difficult to understand. Ginsberg's lover Neal Cassady (as "NC"), Ginsberg's poetic role model William Blake , but also Plotinus and others are mentioned. The Holocaust is also alluded to. A comprehensive list can be found in the English article .

Others

Ginsberg sometimes gave the impression that he had written the poem in a short time in a state of intoxication . This could be refuted; in fact, he worked on the work for several months, maybe even years. It is astonishing that it still seems like a sudden, self-contained burst of emotion.

In 2010 the film Howl - Das Geheul by the US directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman was released , which illustrates the poem in an animation sequence and shows the process and the events leading to it in a fictional documentary.

In the film adaptation of Burroughs' Naked Lunch , a person clearly reminiscent of Ginsberg appears who is working on a Howl- like poem.

Several musicians have mentioned the poem in their works, such as Morrissey in his play Neal Cassady Drops Dead and Lana del Rey in the short film Tropico . The US band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club also named their third studio album Howl .

The text has been reinterpreted and parodied many times .

expenditure

  • Howl and other poems . City Light Books, San Francisco div. Years, ISBN 0-87286-017-5 (reprints of the original edition, English).
  • Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Editions… . HarperPerennial, New York 1995, ISBN 0-06-092611-2 (most comprehensive and best-commented edition, English).
  • Howl / Geheul - facsimile and copy of the first version as well as various revisions, fully commented by the author, with letters from the time of writing, a report of the first reading, text models and a bibliography . Published by Barry Miles. With a contribution by Rolf Schwendter to the history of German translation and reception. Edition Michael Kellner, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-89630-105-5 .
  • Allen Ginsberg: Poems . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-23675-3 (contains German translation Das Geheul ).
  • Howl (with Eric Drooker ). Harper Perennial; Original edition 2010, ISBN 0-06-201517-6 .

literature

  • Jonah Raskin: American scream: Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and the making of the Beat Generation . University of California Press, Berkeley 2004. ISBN 978-0-520-24677-5 .
  • Jason Shinder (Ed.): The poem that changed America: "Howl" fifty years later . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2006. ISBN 0-374-17344-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mayer Nissim, Morrissey: World Peace Is None of Your Business - Album review, digitalspy.co.uk, July 14, 2014, accessed January 19, 2014.
  2. ↑ Conrad Wilitzki, Lana del Rey- Tropico EP , popmonitor.de 4 February 2014 accessed October 23, 2015.