Howl!-Howl! More than forty years ago, Ginsburg dominated the western poetry world with his long poem Howl, and became the spiritual representative and master of "rebellious youth" after World War II, and was called "the Three Giants of American Poetry" together with Whitman and Eliot. However, over the years, readers in China and China have accepted Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Eliot's The Waste Land with great enthusiasm. These works are widely read and regarded as the swan song of modern European and American poetry, but they are unwilling to avoid Ginsburg's poems. This is because for a long time, people have misunderstood Ginsburg and misread Ginsburg's poems because of the cultural barriers and differences between the East and the West. From 1950s to now, the Beat Generation and its representative writer allen ginsberg (also translated as "allen ginsberg") have a bad reputation in China, and the Beat Generation has always been regarded as "the moral decay and decay of American bourgeoisie". Until recently, Wei Hui, Mianmian and other so-called "new literature human beings" born after 70, in Shanghai Baby, Sugar and other works, chose poems out of context, quoted Ginsburg's poems, flaunted their "fashion" and "erudition" alive, sought spiritual support, and yearned for, worshipped and admired them with their "eccentric passion".
In fact, American culture was once synonymous with "radicalism" in the 1950s and 1960s, and it was indeed an era of cultural uproar. On the surface, sexual relations, long-haired teenagers, disco clubs and Beatles rock bands once constituted the cultural landscape of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the radical rebellious youth was called the "beat generation", which was a symbol of that era. Ginsburg, Kerouac, Burroughs and other young people who grew up in the United States after World War II inherited Thoreau's and Emerson's transcendental beliefs, hated American-style materialism, neglected material enjoyment, and sought spiritual support. In particular, they opposed the rich/powerful system of "military-industrial-political integration" in the United States at that time, opposed many drawbacks of industrial civilization, opposed the suppression of human nature by religion, and even more opposed the US invasion of Vietnam and the slaughter of innocent people. Ginsburg was arrested many times for participating in anti-war movements in new york and other places. The CIA kept his special file and was regarded as an "extreme dissident". It is precisely because of their dissatisfaction with American society and contempt for traditional ideas that the so-called "beat generation" abandoned convention in dress and behavior and pursued individuality and self-expression. They have no fixed place to live, wandering on the road all their lives and wandering at the bottom of society for a long time, forming a unique social circle and philosophy of life. From the appearance, "people are obsessed with madness and forget social life", but they also turn to marijuana, drugs and sex because of excessive rebellion, describing sexual pleasure and pranks in literary works. In fact, however, the "beat generation" is very concerned about their own times and the mainstream of society and times-they are enthusiastic about social welfare and human progress and generous in helping others. Before and after his death, Ginsburg used most of his income as a fund to help the poor. They all expressed their concern about human life style, environmental pollution, political deception, distorted personality, oppression of women, black civil rights movement and world peace. In a word, "I care-although it seems that I don't care about anything."
Allen ginsberg's poems are insightful and incisive. In his masterpiece Howl, people see a young man who is not tolerated by American society growling angrily: ... "Molok! Lonely! Dirty *! Ugly! Trash cans and unattainable dollars! The children are screaming under the stairs! The young man cried in the army! The old man sobbed in the park/... Molok's head, Nazi machine! Molok's blood is full of money! Molok's fingers are ten armies! Molok's chest is a life-killing generator! Molok's ear is a smoking graveyard! ..... "In the same year that Ginsburg was still writing Howl, he wrote another poem attacking American society. His work is called America, "America, I gave you everything, but nothing ... I can't stand it anymore." /America, when can we stop the war between human beings? ...../America, when will you be as lovely as an angel? /... America, you are so stupid, how can I write a prayer for you? ……"
It is these rapid-fire bombardments that give vent to the dissatisfaction of the bottom people in the United States who strongly demand to change their economic and social status, which makes Ginsburg's poems, like bursting waves and melting glaciers, endless and mighty, become a declaration of the times! As a representative poet of the people's rebellious spirit, Ginsburg occupies a prominent position in American literature. He has won the "National Book Poetry Award" and is an academician of the American Academy of Arts and Literature. He was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with 1995. 1984 10 As a member of the American writers' delegation, Ginsburg came to China for the reform and opening up and attended the meeting of Chinese and American writers held in Beijing. During his visit, he went to Beijing, Baoding, Kunming, Shanghai and other places to give lectures and hold poetry recitals, and wrote poems such as One Morning, I Walked in China, Reading Bai Juyi to Express My Feelings, Encounter in Beijing, I Love Old Whitman, etc., and read passionately: "Headache, lying on the pillow/still reading poems about ancient roads in the Tang Dynasty/Bai. My/cheeks and bald hair are turning gray/... That arrogant and naughty man may be tragic or ridiculous/I want to know all this when I travel around the world and come home. ……"
One hundred and thirty years ago, Whitman wrote in "The Prospect of Democracy": ... I want to say that in the daily life of the United States of America, only one great material force dominates everything ... Out of spiritual purification, out of pure conscience, in order to seek a true aesthetic realm, for pure and noble masculinity and femininity, at least the same powerful and subtle force should compete with it-otherwise, our modern civilization and its.
Ginsburg died on1April, 1997. However, when reading his immortal poems, we will naturally think of old Whitman's heartfelt call: an immortal poem to purify the American spirit, a "powerful and implicit" Ginsburg-he is the soul of a generation!