society are gone. The poet imagines the souls of
suicides who jumped into the river. Now that
their souls are in eternity, they see from a
detached point of view the grim progress of
Moloch’s world, and so they are laughing.
Part III
LINES 1–19
In his essay ‘‘Notes Written on Finally
Recording ‘Howl,’’’ Ginsberg writes that part
III is ‘‘a litany of affirmation of the Lamb in
its glory.’’ The poet addresses Carl Solomon
directly and makes a recurring statement of sol-
idarity with Solomon in this section. In line 3,
Ginsberg states that Solomon reminds him of his
mother, who was also institutionalized for men-
tal illness. Line 8 may refer to the dehumanizing
treatments given to Solomon, which close down
his formerly acute senses. The spinsters whose
breasts produce tea may represent a conven-
tional respectability divorced from the natural
female body, which would generate nourishing
milk. Solomon’s nurses are identified with har-
pies, winged death-spirits in Greek mythology.
Line 12 links the psychiatric hospital with
the insanity of the militarized United States at
the time of the cold war with Communist Russia.
Ginsberg notes that the soul is pure and should
not die in a place such as this, divorced from
divine grace. In line 13, Ginsberg criticizes the
electric shock treatment given to patients such as
Solomon and implies that the treatment has sep-
arated his soul from his body. He links Solomon
with Christ through the image of the cross, thus
giving Solomon (and, by extension, his fellow
hipsters) the status of a martyr. In line 14, Solo-
mon, who is considered by straight society to be
the mad one, rebels by accusing his doctors of
insanity and plotting political revolution. Gol-
gotha is the biblical name for the place where
Christ was crucified. The poet predicts that Solo-
mon will rise again from this spiritual death, as
Christ did.
The poet imagines himself, Solomon, and
insane comrades singing the ‘‘Internationale,’’ the
international socialist and Communist anthem.
He envisages himself and Solomon caressing a
pure version of their homeland, the United States,
surreptitiously, under thebedsheets.Thisimage
connotes illicit, secret love. This United States is
at the same time likened to a sick person who has
notgivenuponlifeandwhokeepsthemawake
with coughing. Symbolically, the coughing can be
construed as reminders to their conscience that
their nation is in a critical state.
The climax of the poem is an image of the
poet and his companions awakening out of their
coma (induced in them by a brutalizing society)
to the sound of their own souls, which are lik-
ened to airplanes dropping angelic bombs on the
hospital. The building is lit up, and the imprison-
ing walls, the figments of man’s perverted mind,
collapse. The patients run outside to greet the
new world. Line 18 unites the ‘‘star-spangled
banner’’ that is the American flag with the
mercy of the Lamb of God. The eternal war is
the divine counterpart of the dehumanizing
manmade wars that the poet has criticized earlier
in the poem; it can be seen as the war waged by
the light against darkness and ignorance. Now,
the poet and his fellows can forget their under-
wear (line 18), as in this new freedom there is no
longer any need to feel shame at their nakedness.
Ginsberg ends part III with a vision of Solomon
as a modern version of the ancient Greek hero
Odysseus, walking along dripping water, as if
from an epic sea journey, and arriving at Gins-
berg’s cottage.Footnote to ‘‘Howl’’
LINES 1–15
The ‘‘Footnote to ‘Howl’’’ is generally con-
sidered to be part of the poem. It is a reply to the
abuses chronicled in the earlier parts of the poem,
an antithesis to part II, and an affirmation of the
sacredness of all life. This includes the humblest
parts of the human body that, in Ginsberg’s view,
have been wrongly shamed by conventional mor-
ality and antihomosexual attitudes. These are
hailed as being as holy as the angels. Line 5
affirms the holiness of the poetic process. Line 6
names several of Ginsberg’s circle and declares
them holy: Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg himself,
Carl Solomon, Lucien Carr (a key figure in the
Beat movement), Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke
(a subculture icon and writer who was openly
homosexual), William S. Burroughs, and Neal
Cassady. Ginsberg includes in his affirmation
those people who are rejected by conventional
society.
In line 7 Ginsberg affirms the holiness of his
insane mother. Line 8 hails the modern jazz music
(including the form known as bebop). The imageHowl