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MHRD-UGC Epg Pathshala Subject: English Principal Investigator: Prof MHRD-UGC ePG Pathshala Subject: English Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad Paper: 05: “American Literature” Paper Coordinator: Prof. Niladri Chatterjee, University of Kalyani Module No 30: Selected Poems of Allen Ginsberg Content Writer: Sulakshana Biswas, Independent Researcher Content Reviewer: Prof. Niladri Chatterjee, University of Kalyani Language Editor: Dr. Sharmila Majumdar, University of Kalyani About: This paper intends to ventilate upon the life and works of Allen Ginsberg, one of the harbingers of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, America, who went on to become one of the most celebrated poets in the world, influencing many generations of poets to come. It is perhaps difficult to identify what was more intriguing and interesting- Ginsberg’s life or his poetry- as both were mutually inclusive in shaping each other, and the time of the then contemporary, post-World War II scenario. The paper reflects upon his epic poem Howl, Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg-his deceased mother, and some other poems that positioned him in a pivotal role to inspire and practice the counter-culture movement in the 1960s. Born a Jewish, a practicing Buddhist and a disciple of Krishnaic Vaishnavism- Ginsberg was an unorthodox Communist as well. Like his life, his works were as versatile thematically, and an influence of his multi-disciplinary interests. A strong advocate for sexual liberation, anti- capitalist and anti-militarist ideologies, Allen Ginsberg in his works painted the world in his work, voicing the concern to do away with Fascist watch-dogs not only in the socio-political scenario, but the very structure of poetry- by radical use of pyrotechnic verse using the parataxis style, prevalent in the works of Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca, Samuel Beckett, and his contemporaries of the Beat Generation like Herbert Huncke and William S. Burroughs. Ginsberg coined the term “A New Vision” inspired by W. B. Yeats’s “AVision”, after a discussion with Lucien Carr while in Columbia University, so as to shape the works of the movement, where he declares the radical proposition of the Beat Generation authors- “it is our duty to break the law”. Introduction to the Beat Generation: Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose. -Allen Ginsberg The Beat Generation movement originated in the 1950s America where a group of young writers were documenting, commenting and reflecting upon the observations of contemporary post World War II society and culture, which later yielded to play a pivotal role in shaping the transformational counter-culture wave that swept across America in the following decade. Jack Kerouac, one of the authors initiating the movement came up with the term “Beat Generation”, following a conversation with Herbert Huncke, a writer and a small- time street-hustler, who went on to become one of the greatest influences on the movement. The word “beat” has been frequently in use in Afro-American colloquialism and referred to a beaten down or tired situation, something that mirrored the post-world war cynicism that was also inspiring a new kind of Conservatism not only politically, but also socio-culturally. The most popular works that defined the style and ideology of the movement were Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch and Junky, and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. These works echoed the epoch of the “Beat” culture- rejection of conventional structures, anti-militarism, sexual exploration and freedom, and against the fascist regimentation of expression and society. Inspired from W. B. Yeats’s A Vision, they coined the term “A New Vision” that would be the prism through which they saw and depicted the world around them. Other major influences on the Beat literature was the poetry of Walt Whitman, the Romanticism in the works of P.B Shelley and William Blake, French Surrealists Antonin Artaud and André Breton, Arthur Rimbaud and the American modernists- Louis Ferdinand- Céline, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams. Ginsberg also acknowledged the poetry of Emily Dickinson as a major influence on his work. William S. Burroughs cited the novel You Can’t Win by Jack Black, who inspired his writing. Other influences on this movement were the works of Samuel Beckett and Federico Garcia Lorca- Ginsberg even annotates Lorca in his poem A Supermarket in California. Later in the decade- most people involved with the Beat movement would join the San Francisco Renaissance which would give the world the “New American Poetry”. Jack Kerouac wrote the play, Beat Generation, which went on to be roughly adapted in Kerouac’s film, Pull My Daisy, named after the poem written by Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and Kerouac in which Allen Ginsberg acted and improvised narration. Other noted personalities associated with the movement were, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Bob Kauffman, Hal Chase, Peter Orlovsky, Edie Parker, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson, Elisa Nada Cowen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and filmmaker Ruth Weiss, among others. This movement is generally attributed to Ginsberg and his associates. Allen Ginsberg and American poet Anna Waldman established the Naropa Institute’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodies Poets in 1974. Did you know? Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs’s novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks was based upon Lucien Carr’s killing of David Kammerer, who was obsessed with Carr. Kerouac and Burroughs were also arrested as accessories to the murder as Carr went to them after the incident seeking help. The novel was written in 1948 but was published in 2008. Another account of the same incident was handed over by Ginsberg as his paper in the Colombia University, but was told to retract following the scandal of Carr’s arrest. The 2013 film Kill your Darlings by John Krokidas reflects upon this event. Life and Works of Allen Ginsberg: Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1926 and grew up in Paterson in a Jewish home. His father was the poet and school teacher Louis Ginsberg and his mother Naomi Ginsberg was an active member of the Communist party, who used to take Ginsberg to the party meetings when he was young. Ginsberg once described his parents as “old fashioned delicatessen philosophers” and that he “grew suspicious of both sides”, what with Naomi hallucinating about President Roosevelt wiring her room with sound-bugs and Louis reciting Emily Dickinson and cursing T. S. Elliot under his breath for the latter’s use of obscurantism in poetry. While Ginsberg was studying in the Montclair State College, he received a scholarship from the Young Men’s Hebrew Association to study in Columbia University where he met Lucien Carr, a senior who introduced him to William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and John Clellon Holmes. Lucien Carr also introduced Ginsberg to Neal Cassady and Kerouac used to refer to them as the dark and light side of the “New Vision” respectively. Kerouac even named the character based on Ginsberg as Carlo Marx, although he was never a card-bearer of the Communist party. In New York’s Pony Stable Bar, Ginsberg came into contact with Gregory Corso, and collaborated with him many times. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Burroughs and they would start travelling together. Following this period, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco, where working as a market researcher, his first anthology Howl and Other Poems was published in 1956, which he first dedicated to Lucien Carr, but following his request to remove his name from all further publications, he dedicated it to Carl Solomon, whom he met in a mental reformatory institution and became life-long friends until Solomon’s death in 1993. Solomon also helped Burroughs publish his first novel, Junky. Ginsberg’s mentor William Carlos William introduced his to the San Francisco Renaissance authors Kenneth Rexroth, James Broughton, Madeline Gleeson, Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder and then founded the Beatitude poetry magazine. This was the time Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky with whom he fell in love and they remained together until Ginsberg’s death in 1997. Orlovsky and Ginsberg left San Francisco in 1957 and travelled to Morocco for a short span of time before accepting Corso’s invitation to Paris where they stayed in a shabby lodging above the bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur, which was later named the Beat Hotel. It was here that Ginsberg started writing Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg, his deceased mother and Burroughs finished writing Naked Lunch- two seminal works of the Beat period. In 1965, he moved to London and gave free readings of his works, which followed his participation in the International Poetry Convention, where he recited his works along with friend Gregory Corso. Ginsberg next worked closely in collaboration with the counter-culture movement and participated in the 1967, Human Be-In at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, he demonstrated the concerns of the Hippie movement along with fellow Hippies Michael Bowen, Lou Reed and Edie Sedgwick. Ginsberg also travelled to Varanasi and Calcutta with Gary Snyder and Peter Orlovsky, where he befriended Bengali poets- Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shakti Chattopadhyay and Malay Roy Chowdhury, and took interest in the Hungry Generation literary movement in Bengal, that influenced his September on Jessore Road. Ginsberg collaborated with The Beatles’ member Sir Paul McCartney and recorded Ballad of the Skeletons, where the latter played the guitar. Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America shared the National Book Award for poetry in America in 1974. He was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters after receiving the National Arts Club gold medal in 1979. He received the Robert Frost Medal and at the Struga Poetry Evenings, he won the Golden Wreath in 1986.
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