American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation

324 Pages·2004·1.29 MB·English

by  Jonah Raskin

American Scream

JONAH RASKIN
American Scream
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
and the Making of the Beat Generation
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
All quotations from Collected Poems: 1947–1980, White
Shroud: Poems, 1980–1985,and Journals: Mid-Fifties, 1954–
1958in chapters 1 to 11 of American Screamare reproduced
by permission.
Specified excerpts from Journals: Mid-Fifties, 1954–1958,by
Allen Ginsberg. Edited by Gordon Ball. Copyright © 1995
by Allen Ginsberg. Introductory material copyright © by
Gordon Ball. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc., and Penguin Books Ltd.
Specified excerpts from thirty-one poems from Collected
Poems: 1947–1980,by Allen Ginsberg. Copyright © 1984 by
Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc., and Penguin Books Ltd.
Specified excerpts from “I’m a Prisoner of Allen Ginsberg”
from White Shroud: Poems, 1980–1985,by Allen Ginsberg.
Copyright © 1986 by Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted by
permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., and Penguin
Books Ltd.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2004 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Raskin, Jonah, 1942–.
American scream : Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the making
of the Beat Generation / Jonah Raskin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn0-520-24015-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Ginsberg, Allen, 1926– Howl. 2. Literature and
mental illness—United States—History—2oth century.
3. Ginsberg, Allen, 1926—Knowledge—Psychology.
4. Ginsberg, Allen, 1926—Psychology. 5. Poetry—
Psychological aspects. 6. Mental illness in literature.
7. Beat generation. I. Title.
ps3513.i74h636 2004
811(cid:2).54—dc22 2003059527
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and
totally chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997)
(Permanence of Paper). (cid:2)(cid:3)
For R.F.

Contents Acknowledgments ix
Preface:AllenGinsberg’sGenius xi
1 Poetickall Bomshell 1
2 Family Business 25
Trilling-esque
3
Sense of “Civilization” 44
4 Juvenescent Savagery 65
5 Just like Russia 81
Ladies, We Are
6
Going through Hell 104
Another Coast’s Apple
7
for the Eye 121
8 Mythological References 143
9 Famous Authorhood 158
This Fiction Named
10
Allen Ginsberg 189
11 Best Minds 209
Notes and Sources 231
Index 263

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Bob Rosenthal and the Allen Ginsberg
Trust for permission to quote from unpublished Ginsberg mate-
rial at libraries across the United States. I also want to thank the
Trust for permission to quote from the Annotated Howl,as well as
from psychiatric reports obtained from the New York State Psy-
chiatric Institute in Manhattan and from Langley Porter in San
Francisco.
I would like to thank the libraries themselves for permission
to quote from Ginsberg’s letters, manuscripts, and journals. Un-
published material appears here courtesy of the Department of
Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries; Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Fales Library,
New York University; Bancroft Library, the University of Cali-
fornia at Berkeley; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,
the University of Texas at Austin; and the Berg Collection of En-
glish and American Literature, The New York Public Library
Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
ix