SOURCE: Merrill, Thomas F. “Howl and Other Poems.” In Allen Ginsberg, revised edition, pp. 50-69. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.

In the following essay, Merrill offers an examination of Ginsberg's “Howl” and other works.

History of Howl

Despite the fact that it has been fashionable to say that Howl exploded on the American literary scene like a bombshell, that San Francisco finally “turned Ginsberg on,” and that this poem heralded in the Beat Generation, it is difficult to find in this admittedly extraordinary poem much that has not been anticipated in inchoate and sometimes even mature form in Empty Mirror. Howl is a crystallization of incipient attitudes and techniques that Ginsberg had held for years, but it is hardly the beginning of a new poetic direction or even a sudden eruption of outrage. It cannot even be said that Howl is uniquely modern in form or intention. Most would have...