A Manifesto of the Counterculture Movement: Interpretation of “Howl” from the Perspective of New Historicism

In “Howl”, Allen Ginsberg described the alternative life of a group of bohemian young people, criticizing the technological rationality in post-World War II American society and the mainstream culture. The poem has both rebellious and prophetic images. On the one hand, it rebels against tradition and gives vent to the author’s anger both in form and content; on the other hand, it sets a model for the counterculture movement of the hippies in the 1960s, heralding the arrival of a new and turbulent era.