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Howl Rules and Order Quotes
(line)
| who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, |
Down with school! Down with school! The speaker feels that universities are implicated in modern warfare, perhaps because of their role in creating new technologies like the Hydrogen Bomb. Their "cool eyes" express skepticism and aloofness.
| who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York (line 9) |
It's hard to tell whether or not the speaker approves of such illegal activities. Historical side note: marijuana was still a relatively new drug problem in the 1950s, and the government was just beginning to decide how to deal with it.
| who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets, |
Howl is full of ironic depictions of a world turned upside-down, where madmen accuse doctors of insanity and average citizens investigate the investigators (the F.B.I.).
| who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, |
Lines 30-35 deal with people who are arrested for what the speaker regards as unjust reasons. Even as they are hauled off in squad cars, they seem thrilled and "[shriek] with delight." What are they so happy about? Are they insane, or is there another explanation?
| who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy (line 66) |
The poem shows how rebellious political and artistic movements have been incorporated in mainstream society. Dadaism was a movement started in France that attempted to undermine the traditional values of art, but in the process it became respectable enough to be taught in art history courses. The students try to reassert the original aims of Dadaism by performing the absurd and anti-traditional act of throwing potato salad at their teachers.
| Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! |
The creature known as Moloch contains the causes and effects of traditional authority.
| Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! |
You may have heard of the concept of the "body politic" used to describe a country. Ginsberg turns Moloch into a Godzilla-like "body anti-politic," tearing at the bond between citizens. His body parts are instruments of capitalist and military might. Rather than produce order, they destroy it. Moloch is a false idol.
| Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! |
From resembling a huge monster trampling on America's working class, Moloch becomes a bubble in which the speaker lives, a soundproof room in which he goes mad.
| I'm with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha |
The patients of the psychiatric hospital plan a "revolution" to counter the "fascist" elements of society. "Fascist" is an insult commonly hurled at conservatives by progressives, just like "Commie" was a insult hurled at liberals by conservatives. Carl Solomon lives in a world of stark political poles.
