Chelsa Lauderdale
Intro to Writing and Literature
11/24/10
Source Evaluation - “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg
The source that I chose to evaluate was a radio broadcast about called “Revisiting Allen Ginsberg ‘Howl’ at 50” by Tom Vitale. I chose this source because I thought it could help me write my paper in seeing how the poem affected the culture of its time. It drew my attention because it seemed like an interesting and useful source and it also had quotes from Ginsberg. It’s useful to my research paper because it will helped me narrow my focus from just talking about the poem “Howl” to the effect that “Howl” had on the general public. It provided me with a greater understanding of my topic because it introduced me to things and ideas that I had not known before, like the fact that “Howl” was actually started out as a different poem. It gave me ideas about how to incorporate the material into my paper because it changed my topic idea altogether. It’s an appropriate source because it contains an actual interview with Ginsberg himself which help me understand the kind of person he was and how and why he wrote Howl. The quote, “The poem gave voice to an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and alienation in Eisenhower's America. "Howl" became an anthem for the nascent counterculture” seems like a very useful quote to my topic because it sets a basis for the things I want to talk about in my paper. I can integrate this quote in the introduction of my research paper to highlight exactly what the poem “Howl” did to people when it was first released.
Source URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5419033
Glad this was useful, Chelsa. I think it is important to look at (in particular for this poem) how a text has remained in the cultural consciousness for such a long time.
ReplyDeleteA few things to look out for:
1) although I think it's fine to use this recording, look for critical texts as well.
2) Be careful not to put too much focus on the cultural effects of Howl to the detriment of looking at the text itself. A lot can be said (and has been said) about how Howl affected the counter-culture, but we need to focus on exactly HOW the poem did those things. Also, consider the poem separately from the celebrity of Ginsberg himself (sometimes difficult to do).
So, while I think it would be silly not to touch on the cultural significance of the work, let's keep the focus on the work itself rather than Ginsberg's persona and the cultural reaction.
good work,
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