When it first gained colloquial usage in 1948
the termbeatmeant beaten down by conventional
society and derelict. Later, Jack Kerouac gave the
term the additional meanings of upbeat, beatific,
and on the beat musically—and Kerouac and his
companions, as well as the hipster culture they
inspired, became known as the Beat generation.
Both meanings are expressed in ‘‘Howl,’’ in which
Ginsberg and his friends are presented as dragging
themselves through dark streets naked, starving,
and abused by society, but also as divinely
inspired, angelic, and Christlike figures. Thus,
the first part of the poem is both a lament for
and a celebration of the lives of the Beat figures.
These people put into practice William Blake’s
aphorism from the ‘‘Proverbs of Hell,’’ inThe
Marriage of Heaven and Hell(1794), to the effect
that the pursuit of excess leads to wisdom. They
tried to follow their desires for love, freedom,
and spiritual experience. In their rebellion
against conventional authority and their deter-
mination to maintain the integrity of their souls
whatever the price, theyreflect another aphor-
ism from the ‘‘Proverbs of Hell,’’ which states
that the spontaneous passion of wrath contains
more wisdom than the voice of reasoned
authority.
Individualism
Part of the Beats’ rebellion against conventional
1950s morality was their enthusiastic pursuit
of two taboo activities, sexual freedom and
experimental drug taking. The former included
homosexuality. In the United States in the
1950s, sexual acts between men were illegal in
most states under sodomy laws. However, in
‘‘Howl,’’ Ginsberg celebrates homosexuality.
In reality, Ginsberg is arguing for the freedom
of an individual to be as he or she is, and not to be
defined or constrained by social conventions.
Madness
The theme of madness permeates the poem and
reflects its prominence in Ginsberg’s own life: his
mother spent years in a psychiatric institution,
and Ginsberg himself was institutionalized for
eight months. Part III of the poem describes
Ginsberg’s experience of being institutionalized
for mental illness along with Carl Solomon. The
poet’s attitude is one of sympathy with Solomon.
In an ironic reversal in line 14, Solomon accuses
his doctors of insanity.
Ginsberg treats his own madness, and that of
Carl Solomon, as a badge of honor in an insane
world dominated by fear, the cold war, govern-
ment secrecy, anti-Communist scares, and the
ever-present threat of annihilation by the atomic
or hydrogen bomb. The poem asks the question,
in an insane world such as this, who is truly mad?
Ginsberg suggests that those branded as mad are,
in fact, the sane ones. Thus, images of madness
are connected with images of divinity and Christ-
like martyrdom.Nakedness
There are many references to nakedness and
bareness in the poem in the descriptions of Gins-
berg and his fellow Beats. Examples are part I,
lines 1, 5, 8, and 33. In line 1, nakedness connotes
madness, poverty, and vulnerability. In line 5,
the notion of baring the brain to heaven con-
notes a direct connection with the divine. In line
33, the vulnerability of nakedness is taken to
extreme lengths in an image suggestive of a tor-
ture chamber. Generally in the poem, nakedness
and bareness suggest honesty and directness on
the part of the Beats as set against the hypocrisy
and secrecy of mainstream society. Newborn
babies come into the world naked, so nakedness
suggests innocence and guilelessness.
There is also a suggestion of the prelapsar-
ian (before the Fall) state of man in the biblical
Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve are first
created, they are at one with God and do his will.
At this point, they are naked and unashamed.
But they lose their innocence through giving into
Satan’s temptation to eat the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. Immediately, they
feel ashamed of their nakedness and cover them-
selves with clothes. When God sees this, he
knows that they have disobeyed him; they have
fallen from divine grace. Thus, clothes are a
symbol of loss of innocence, of shame about
the body, and of division from the divine. Gins-
berg’s naked and bareheaded Beats are shown as
being close to God and as holy prophets.Style
Spontaneous Expression
In ‘‘Notes Written on Finally Recording ‘Howl, ’’’
(inDeliberate Prose: Selected Essays, 1952–1995),
Ginsberg explains that when he sat down to write
the poem, he intended it to mark a new phase in
his poetic development, characterized by com-
plete freedom of expression. He writes:Howl