The Nexus of Matter and Manner: A Poetic of Postmodern Ethos in Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems

Abstract

Poetics refers to the principles of literary interpretation. Such principles may be found in treatises, essays and critical theories. The formulation of principles of literary interpretation may be traced to the Greco-Classical scholars, specifically, Aristotle, in his treatise entitled Poetics. This was followed subsequently by similar treatises, essays and theories by scholars from the Greco- Classical period up until the twentieth century. Postmodernism is the contemporary literary criticaltool of analysis and its tenets constitute the basic principles for the interpretation of modern-day poetry. Existing studies on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems have addressed the work from different angles of interpretation including new historicism, archetypal criticism, and structuralism. Not much has been done in examining the work from a postmodernist standpoint. This is the thrust of this study which examines Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems from apostmodernist perspective. The research is a qualitative one, and adopts the interpretive design. The paper finds that Ginsberg’s poetry is a quintessence of a postmodernist art which succinctly captures the realities of the contemporary world such as uncertainty, chaos, absurdity, restlessness, and the meaninglessness of life. The work is replete with eclecticism, pornography, scatology, absence of a single dominant style, indeterminacy, and iconoclasm which constitute the basic tenets and indeed the hallmarks of postmodern poetry.