Howl

Howl

1. Postmodernism

   • Marginal discourses: ex-centric
   • anarchy
   • polisemy
   • interrogated authority

2. devices

   • free verse
   • phrase and line length
   • jazz patterns
   • anaphora, parallelism
   • cultural references
   • songs or chants to awaken dancing responses
   • "breath units"
   • repetitions
   • syntactic structures comprised rhythmic energy
   • juxtaposition of images
   • paranomasia
   • paratactically placed sentences

3. style

   • desolate imagery, alienation
   • orality
   • messiah
   • theory of reunion of body and mind
   • litany-like
   • final parataxis

4. the Beats Manifesto

   • worshipped social outcasts
   • Transcendentalism

5. influence

   • Whitman's long lines, encantory repetitions, syncopated rhythms
   • Poe's long-lines, hypnotic musicality

6. themes

   • madmen of his time
   • anger and anxiety
   • Carl Solomon
   • denunciation of modern life
   • 1st censures damage done to poets 2nd charge on the "pure machinery" 3rd spiritual poverty of modern life associated with mental breakdown