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Though he continued to write poetry until the end of his life, Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) remains best known for the work he did as part of the Beat Generation of writers in the 1950s. Aside from Ginsberg, the Beat Generation centered on two main figures: Jack Kerouac, whom Ginsberg met while they were students at Columbia University in the mid-1940s, and William S. Burroughs, who for a time shared an apartment with Kerouac in New York’s East Village. The friendship developed among these men proved deeply and mutually influential. Ginsberg’s time in New York had significant ups and downs, and it ended with him spending eight months in the Columbia Psychiatric Institute. Not long after his release, Ginsberg moved to San Francisco. Among Ginsberg’s new contacts there was Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the legendary City Lights Bookshop. Ferlinghetti published “Howl” in 1956, an event that brought Ginsberg immediate notoriety—not least because the poem became the subject of an obscenity trial. In many ways, “Howl” encompasses many of the central values that would guide Ginsberg’s life and career in the decades that followed. Principal among these values are his rejection of sexual repression and economic materialism, and an openness to multiculturalism and mysticism.

Next section Historical and Literary Context

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