Ginsberg's Life

Most of the significant events in Ginsberg's life are in some way attached to his writing. His parents were both common people, his father was a lyric poet and professor, and Ginsberg was exposed to different forms of poetry at an early age. His mother suffered from schizophrenia and was hospitalized when Ginsberg was young. Often he would end up at home taking care of his mother while she suffered from bouts of delirium. When attending Colombia University as a labor law major, his friends Kerouac and Burroughs persuaded him towards literature. He was suspended from Colombia University for obscenity charges, and he worked as a seaman and a welder for a while. He finished his degree and checked into a mental hospital to avoid criminal charges relating to theft. In the early fifties he began a correspondence with William Carlos Williams the most significant living role model in Ginsberg's life. He wrote "Howl" in 1955 encouraged by Williams. The poem was then put on trial in California on obscenity charges, which were overruled under the first amendment. In the same year "Howl" was published, Ginsberg’s mother died of mental exhaustion. His response to her death was a long narrative poem called "Kaddish." Soon after "Kaddish" was published the Beats began to become popular and Ginsberg traveled worldwide, especially through Europe and Asia, gaining a strong respect and love for the eastern religions.

Throughout the 60s he was very active in protests against the Vietnam War. He became a converted Buddhist in 1970 and lived out the rest of his life in New York. He died in 1997 of liver cancer. The chief influence in Ginsberg's writing was the poet Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman was an innovative and groundbreaking author. He developed his own distinct form of poetry, which was exceedingly different from the traditional poetry of the time. Whitman's poetry was a glorification of the individual, and a cry to the American masses. It was greatly influenced by the teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and constantly varied, almost contradicting itself. It was first rhetorical and bombastic, then peaceful and serene. It was deep and intense, and then sexually personal. "His poetry was exhilarating and exhausting, like a fiercely contested game, or a conversation with an immensely vital person" (Early, 310). Whitman's poetry opened peoples' minds to new ways of thinking. He called for greatness in American poetry, and he praised America to the highest degree. Though only few answered Whitman’s call, Ginsberg was one of the few, and he answered with full potency and reverence. "The Beats [were] the 'subtle and tremendous force-infusion' Whitman called for" (Ball, 246) Whitman created his own individual form which even to this day is referred to as Whitmanesque. He used long, over-flowing lines that were very descriptive and used lots of colorful adjectives to paint pictures in the reader's mind. Catalogues were his most commonly used poetic device, listing word after word, to build the detail of whatever he was describing, and very often becoming discursive for the reader. Trippers and askers surround me, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I I live in, or the nation The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love (180).

Whitman's style can be seen mirrored by Ginsberg's, as shown here: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by the madness, starving hysterical, naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night (126) Another strong characteristic shared by the two poets was the repetition of the first word in each line. For example, in the third section of Ginsberg's "Howl" every breath unit begins with the phrase "I'm with you in Rockland," which puts Ginsberg on the level of the victims/heroes that he has been describing. In most of Whitman’s poetry, he also used word repetition at the begging of each line, usually in a group of five or six lines at a time to emphasize a certain section: Then I woke softly, And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream, And questioning all those reminiscences, the tempest in its fury, And all the songs of sopranos and tenors, And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor, And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs, And all the artless plaints of love and grief and death (525) This proves to be an extremely notable and effective sound device giving the poetry a natural cadence, while at the same time keeping the long, stretched out, descriptive lines.

Both Whitman and Ginsberg wrote in free verse and their poems usually were separated into multiple parts. During Whitman's time, free verse was very rare. Most poets used traditional forms of poetry. Whitman saw this as boring and a way of limiting what he had to say. He felt he could not get his point across effectively using rhyme schemes and meters. Ginsberg's verse varied in style, but his best works were created in Whitmanesque form. "Ginsberg claimed that Whitman's form had 'rarely been further explored,' that Whitman was a 'mountain too vast to be seen,' that with a few exceptions his line was taken as 'a big freakish uncontrollable necessary prosaic goof"(Ball, 244). Both the lives of Ginsberg and Whitman were similar, and it can be noted when comparing their writings. This was also one of the reasons Ginsberg felt he was so strongly connected to Whitman. Both had average parents, and both were exposed to literature at an early age. Whitman embraced literature early on and loved it from the start; Ginsberg's love developed gradually through his teenage years. They were born and raised in similar city like environments.

Ginsberg grew up outside of Trenton, New Jersey, while Whitman grew up in Brooklyn. Both poets also shared an extreme love for Ralph Waldo Emerson and his teachings. Whitman's chief correspondence and role model during his time was Emerson, where as Ginsberg's was William Carlos Williams. Both authors reached significant turning points in their lives, which affected their writing for the better. Whitman took a three-month trip to New Orleans, which gave birth to his creative awakening. Ginsberg checked into a mental institution to avoid criminal charges from an incident with Herbert Huncke. After being released, he moved to San Francisco and wrote "Howl" inspired by his experiences in the mental institute. Both poets were inspired by the city of Manhattan. This was more prevalent in Whitman's poetry than Ginsberg's. Whitman's poem "Manahatta" shows his passionate love for the city, where as Ginsberg's "Manhattan May Day Midnight" gave a dark terrifying look at how times had changed for the worst, and the once proud, public palace that Whitman so dearly praised had become a crawling pit of misery. Both writers had a history of mental illness in their family, Ginsberg with his mother, and Whitman with his siblings, two of which died early of mental illness, and two who lived their lives in a harmfully unstable state.