Expelled From the Academies: Allen Ginsbergs Howl

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Expelled From the Academies Allen Ginsbergs
Howl
Mr. Stohrers 11th Grade English Class
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Expelled From the Academies Allen Ginsbergs
Howl
Part I The Best Minds of my generation The
counter-culture of 1955 The Beat
Movement Jazz (floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz) free verse poetry
(publishing obscene ode) drugs (Peyote
solidities of halls) Eastern philosophy and
religion (to tender Buddha) Open sexuality
(copulated ecstatic) Liberal politics
(supercommunist pamphlets)
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Part II Moloch Moloch in Jewish Scripture
Stealer of children Represents Industrial
Society (cement and aluminum, pure
machinery), A threat to the greatest minds
from Part I
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Part III Carl Solomon in Rockland Ginsberg met
Carl Solomon in a psychiatric hospital
(Rockland) The poem ends with Ginsberg
pledging his support to Solomon, who represents
the Greatest minds under siege by conformist,
industrial society
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Controversy over the poem continued long after
its publication

• in October 1988, (a law was passed) which
  affectively means that obscene language can
  only be broadcast between the hours of midnight
  and six am. This being to protect school kids who
  are reading my poems in class anyway. Allen
  Ginsberg
• Picture from http//www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poet
  s/g_l/ginsberg/ginsberg.htm