"You feel like you are going through the gutter when you have to read that stuff. I didn't linger on it too long, I assure you." -a prosection witness, at the obscenity trial for 'Howl'
Howl is a poem written by the legendary beat poet Allen Ginsberg. You can find the text in a lot of places, however there is a lot of history surrounding Howl which needs to be included here.
The first reading of Howl
Howl was first read by Ginsberg in public in October, 1955 in San Francisco. The occasion was the first in a series of famous poetry readings at the Six Gallery, an art gallery. The advertisement for the first reading follows:
6 POETS AT 6 GALLERY -------------------- Philip Lamantia reading mss. of late John Hoffman-- Mike McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder & Phil Whalen--all sharp new straightforward writing-- remarkable coll- ection of angels on one stage reading their poetry. No charge, small collection for wine, and postcards. Charming event. Kenneth Rexroth, M.C. 8 PM Friday Night October 7,1955 6 Gallery 3119 Fillmore St. San Fran --------------------
Many people have pointed to this reading as the event which heralded the onset of the Beat Generation and all the craziness and literature that came with it. Allen Ginsberg had, previous to this performance, been a relatively unknown poet, but he achieved instant notoriety with the first reading of Howl. He also had the opportunity to meet several other promising San Francisco poets through the series of readings.
Also in attendance at this reading was the young writer Jack Kerouac, who would go on to write the famous novel 'On the Road' and coin the phrase "Beat Generation". Kerouac had the job of collecting change from the crowd and procuring some burgundy to help the audience loosen up prior to the reading. Gary Snyder, a Zen poet who would inspire Kerouac to write his later novel 'The Dharma Bums' was also reading that night.
Around 150 people attended the reading at the Six Gallery, which was adorned with surrealistic sculptures in line with the subversive atmosphere of the night.
Ginsberg was the second to last poet to read, but it is certain that he stole the audience's imagination. The poem consists of long, rambling lines of verse that Ginsberg read quickly with quick pauses at the end for breath. Halfway through, Kerouac, who was sitting close to the stage, started chanting "Go! Go!" in rythm with Ginsberg. It's possible to imagine the reading as part rant, part religious sermon, and part rythmic vocal music with the ecstatic punctuation of Kerouac in the front row.
It's certain that this night marked the start of Ginsberg's long career as well as the start of public attention toward Howl. The poem was received with great appreciation by the crowd, who understandably had never heard anything like it before.
The Obscenity Trial
Several lines in Howl caused public outcry when it became well known, in particular the line - "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,"
Howl was published by City Lights Books in a small collection named 'Howl and Other Poems'. When the outrage about the content of Howl reached a peak, 520 copies of Howl and Other Poems were confiscated as obscene material, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the publisher of City Lights Books, was arrested. The charge was publishing obscene books.
The trial was pretty much a laughing matter. The defence put nine literary experts on the stand, who all testified as to the literary worth of Howl, and its validity as a work of art. In contrast, the prosecution could only raise two witnesses, one from the Catholic University in San Francisco, and a private tutor, who provided the trial with the quote with which this node begins.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was easily acquitted, and the trial sealed Howl's fame, as obscenity trials of any kind are wont to do. In 2002, Howl has long been recognised as a landmark poem of it's genre, and is studied at universities around the world.
The Subject Matter
Howl is all about real experiences that Allen Ginsberg had, and real people that he met. The poem is dedicated to Carl Solomon, one of the more crazy people that Ginsberg associated with, and partly inspired by his mother, who was eventually lobotomised due to her incessant insanity.
Another character appearing in the poem is Neal Cassady, who inspired the character Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's On the Road, and who had a reluctant (on Neal's part) affair with Ginsberg.
The other people appearing in Howl are members of the chaotic community surrounding Ginsberg; junkies, homosexuals, radical political activists, artists, poets and writers; for the most part people who live in a way totally different from the norm of the day. These people still exist everywhere in the world; in many ways Howl is an attempt to have these people understood; to have their lives accepted by the mainstream of society, who has always condemned them.
I hope you get as much out of Howl as I have.
Sources:
for my contemporary poetry class. prof lindsay gave me 88%, which i suppose is alright. sorry about the <pre> tags.
~ the form of "howl" Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem "Howl" was considered a breakthrough in poetic experimentation. Although madness had for years already been considered a possible object of serious artistic consideration when "Howl" was published (especially in France, which had produced Antonin Artaud in the previous generation and Jean Dubuffet's Foyer de l'art brut only a few years before "Howl"), this was the first time the real feel of madness had truly been captured by an ostensibly sane artist. Unlike the actual writings of the insane, who sometimes lack full poetic command of their language, Ginsberg's poem creates a sense of madness by virtue of the elements which constitute its form as a poem. In particular, there are two elements of this poem's form that stand out for our consideration: the structures of the chapters, and the syntax of each chapter. Paul Fussell's awesome book Poetic Meter & Poetic Form will be my guide in analysing the form of "Howl." ~ chapters "Howl" lacks any kind of division based on line numbers. In this sense it could be said to be stichic, according to Fussell's definition of that term (109). This poem is, however, divided into three distinct parts and a footnote. Although they don't quite serve the same function as stanzas would in a more traditionally structured poem, they do have a topical consistency and constitute an element of the poem's form. Insofar as these chapters contribute to the form of the poem as a whole, to that extent "Howl" can be considered strophic, again according to Fussell's definition (ibid), or at least pseudo-strophic. In this respect, Fussell's principle for shorter strophic poems – that "in a short multistanza poem, the poem generally tends toward a greater density the closer the number of stanzas accords with the number of divisions of action or intellection which the poem undertakes" (155) – can be repaired to apply even to a work as long as "Howl." In terms of the topics dealt with in the poem, we can divide the whole into two blocks. The first block, consisting of the first and second chapters, discusses the forces that drive this generation mad. In the first chapter, the poet sees "the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness," (126) drugs, alcohol, radical fury ("who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, / who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down..." – 127), and sexual over-extension ("who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists..." "Who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset..." – 128). The idea conveyed here is the internalization of destructive impetus. The second chapter identifies Moloch, the demon of finance and industry, as that "sphinx of cement and aluminum [that] bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination" (131). Moloch is identified with "unobtainable dollars," with judgment, war, skyscrapers and factories (131), and all the modern conveniences that the poet sees as washing away "the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit" that he and people like him need to thrive (132). These are all the factors that contribute to the isolation and destruction of spiritual people. The idea conveyed in this chapter is the external experience of destruction. The second block, consisting of the third chapter and (if we consider "Footnote to Howl" as being an addition to "Howl") the footnote, represent the response of the mad to these forces. The third stanza is an expression of solidarity with the mad – "I'm with you in Rockland / where you're madder than I am" (132). The poet identifies with the madman Carl Solomon on a personal level ("you imitate the shade of my mother" – 132), and the poet becomes more fevered as this section progresses; the length of the lines steadily increases, in waves, as the poet's relation to Solomon is expressed with greater and greater intensity (132-133). The idea conveyed here is the discovery of a new sensitivity to the experience of madness, of seeing madness in oneself. The "Footnote to Howl" can barely contain the sacred outpouring that drives it; the first line itself is a repetition of that one word, "holy," fifteen times (134); the word is repeated again sixty-two times in only fifteen lines. The word is ubiquitous because, for the poet, the sacred experience really is everywhere; it manifests in every city of the world, and from the soul right down to the genitals and excretory organs. (134) This is a defiant expression of that "whole load of sensitive bullshit" that modern society tramples, and is made both more regular and more intense, like a mantra, by the repetition of the word "holy." The idea conveyed here is outward experience of real sensitivity, of the outwardly-looking pantheist schizophrenic. There is an obvious parallel between the two blocks. We can see a clear and ordered sequence here: 1: Destruction – (I) ... as an internalized force; (II) ... as an external pressure; 2: Sensitivity – (III) ... as an internal solidarity; ("Footnote") ... as an extroverted experience. Even considered without "Footnote to Howl," the poem retains a clear topical structure: (I) internal destruction; (II) external destruction; (III) solidarity, and madness as an opportunity for redemption. The topical structure of the poem could also be summarized quickly in a figure: –
~ the form of "howl"
Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem "Howl" was considered a breakthrough in poetic experimentation. Although madness had for years already been considered a possible object of serious artistic consideration when "Howl" was published (especially in France, which had produced Antonin Artaud in the previous generation and Jean Dubuffet's Foyer de l'art brut only a few years before "Howl"), this was the first time the real feel of madness had truly been captured by an ostensibly sane artist. Unlike the actual writings of the insane, who sometimes lack full poetic command of their language, Ginsberg's poem creates a sense of madness by virtue of the elements which constitute its form as a poem.
In particular, there are two elements of this poem's form that stand out for our consideration: the structures of the chapters, and the syntax of each chapter. Paul Fussell's awesome book Poetic Meter & Poetic Form will be my guide in analysing the form of "Howl."
~ chapters
"Howl" lacks any kind of division based on line numbers. In this sense it could be said to be stichic, according to Fussell's definition of that term (109). This poem is, however, divided into three distinct parts and a footnote. Although they don't quite serve the same function as stanzas would in a more traditionally structured poem, they do have a topical consistency and constitute an element of the poem's form. Insofar as these chapters contribute to the form of the poem as a whole, to that extent "Howl" can be considered strophic, again according to Fussell's definition (ibid), or at least pseudo-strophic. In this respect, Fussell's principle for shorter strophic poems – that "in a short multistanza poem, the poem generally tends toward a greater density the closer the number of stanzas accords with the number of divisions of action or intellection which the poem undertakes" (155) – can be repaired to apply even to a work as long as "Howl."
In terms of the topics dealt with in the poem, we can divide the whole into two blocks. The first block, consisting of the first and second chapters, discusses the forces that drive this generation mad. In the first chapter, the poet sees "the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness," (126) drugs, alcohol, radical fury ("who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, / who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down..." – 127), and sexual over-extension ("who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists..." "Who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset..." – 128). The idea conveyed here is the internalization of destructive impetus.
The second chapter identifies Moloch, the demon of finance and industry, as that "sphinx of cement and aluminum [that] bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination" (131). Moloch is identified with "unobtainable dollars," with judgment, war, skyscrapers and factories (131), and all the modern conveniences that the poet sees as washing away "the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit" that he and people like him need to thrive (132). These are all the factors that contribute to the isolation and destruction of spiritual people. The idea conveyed in this chapter is the external experience of destruction.
The second block, consisting of the third chapter and (if we consider "Footnote to Howl" as being an addition to "Howl") the footnote, represent the response of the mad to these forces. The third stanza is an expression of solidarity with the mad – "I'm with you in Rockland / where you're madder than I am" (132). The poet identifies with the madman Carl Solomon on a personal level ("you imitate the shade of my mother" – 132), and the poet becomes more fevered as this section progresses; the length of the lines steadily increases, in waves, as the poet's relation to Solomon is expressed with greater and greater intensity (132-133). The idea conveyed here is the discovery of a new sensitivity to the experience of madness, of seeing madness in oneself.
The "Footnote to Howl" can barely contain the sacred outpouring that drives it; the first line itself is a repetition of that one word, "holy," fifteen times (134); the word is repeated again sixty-two times in only fifteen lines. The word is ubiquitous because, for the poet, the sacred experience really is everywhere; it manifests in every city of the world, and from the soul right down to the genitals and excretory organs. (134) This is a defiant expression of that "whole load of sensitive bullshit" that modern society tramples, and is made both more regular and more intense, like a mantra, by the repetition of the word "holy." The idea conveyed here is outward experience of real sensitivity, of the outwardly-looking pantheist schizophrenic.
There is an obvious parallel between the two blocks. We can see a clear and ordered sequence here:
1: Destruction – (I) ... as an internalized force; (II) ... as an external pressure; 2: Sensitivity – (III) ... as an internal solidarity; ("Footnote") ... as an extroverted experience.
1: Destruction –
(I) ... as an internalized force; (II) ... as an external pressure;
2: Sensitivity –
(III) ... as an internal solidarity; ("Footnote") ... as an extroverted experience.
Even considered without "Footnote to Howl," the poem retains a clear topical structure: (I) internal destruction; (II) external destruction; (III) solidarity, and madness as an opportunity for redemption.
The topical structure of the poem could also be summarized quickly in a figure: –
Figure: Semantic structure in the chapters of "Howl" and "Footnote to Howl" Destruction Sensitivity I: "I saw the best minds of my generation III: "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Internal destroyed by madness, starving hysterical Rockland...." (132) naked...." (126) II: "What sphinx of cement and aluminum "Footnote to Howl:" "Holy! Holy! Holy! External bashed open their skulls and ate up their Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! brains and imagination?" Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!"
In respect to this topical structure, the first chapter bears special mention. There are two significant factors that contribute to our sense of its centrality to the poem. First, it is the first passage presented. The first two lines set the tone for the entire poem: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...." (126) Thus, our very first impression of the poem is of insanity and self-destruction. Secondly, it is more than three times as long as the second-longest chapter (the third), and constitutes more than half of the poem as a whole. Because the most robust section of the poem treats of this theme of internalized destructive impulse, our most lasting impression of the poem as a whole is of this theme. These formal elements force the theme of madness and self-destruction to the forefront. ~ syntax Of the poem as a whole, this much can be said: "Howl" is a poem about madness, and the form it has been given is most suited to this study. It's written in free verse; without meter, it must be formalized along some other dimension. That formalization manifests differently in each chapter, but on the whole it is accomplished with repetition of words that play specific grammatical roles – names, adjectives, or clause structures. It is this particular formalization, ironically, that gives "Howl" its irrational, rambling feeling. Of the poem's four chapters, the last three have the most straightforward use of repetition. In the second chapter, the evocation (or exorcism) of Moloch regulates the passage; the poet continually returns to that word as the name of the demonic principle he sees immanent in the social ills of 1950s America. The third chapter is an expression of sympathy with the mad, and Carl Solomon's name becomes the controlling power; Carl Solomon is the archetypal new sensitive American driven to madness, and so the expression of fraternity returns to his name. In both of these chapters, the nature of the repetition is basically the same: the name of the representative of the spirit inspiring the chapter – the spirit of rationalized death or the spirit of mad life – is chanted. In "Footnote to Howl," the word "holy" serves to free the expression of the sacred experience by controlling the language; it insinuates itself in every line because every experience expresses a sacred reality. In each of these stanzas, the repetition is obvious, and its formal purpose in the context of the section's topic is clear. Again, the first chapter has features that highlight it for special consideration. The word by which repetition is established in this chapter is neither a name (as in the second and third chapters), nor an emotionally- charged expressive adjective (as in the "Footnote to Howl"); here it's a specifically grammatical repetition. This is, of course, the very traditional poetic device of anaphora, as Fussell points out (80); but it doesn't have a traditional effect in "Howl." The first chapter is given form by its past and present participles, adjectives, and above all, verbal clauses controlled by the relative pronoun, "who." Within each such clause, there is further internal repetition of grammatical form – for example, in the line "who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas..."(127) we see a repetition of objects of study. This structure is more complicated than that which we find in the other chapters, and moreso than the others partakes of that quality of insane speech. Although Fussell sees this repetition as an opportunity for Ginsberg to exploit the free verse tradition of enumeration (79), it also imparts a certain aphasic quality to the language. Speech is no longer one grammatical dimension, from subject to verb to object; although it's compressed back into a single line of text, the poem's sense advances, retreats, and branches out constantly in new semantic directions. In this way it mimics the consciousness of a madman, that pours through many parallel channels of meaning without being able to focus on any specific one. Because the verbs in each relative clause take the simple past tense, there is also an ambiguity as to whether any given clause describes a single incident or an habitual cycle; the sense seems to vary from line to line. Most, like "who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York," (126) "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened..." (129), and "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" (130), seem to refer to specific incidents; others seem to refer to ongoing processes, like the line quoted above about occult studies (127). Still others seem to refer to habitual cycles, like "who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull," (126) where the plural "academies" implies this happened more than once. In addition to its rambling sense, this use of "who" as the repeating unit has paradoxical effects. It puts an emphasis on verbs while retaining a grammatical reference to nouns; it presents us with actions, conjunctions of bodies and chemicals and energies and potato salads, and it echoes its own question: "Who is it that's doing this?" It's not the dregs to which the poet points – it's "the best minds of [his] generation." The relative pronoun shifts the emphasis away from the agent and onto the acts; we are not supposed to look at the agent to understand the act, but rather to look at the acts and understand the agent. Emphasizing the agent, saying on every line "Carl Solomon (or whoever) did this," would make it easy to dismiss these acts as being senseless; a reader could say, "We know who did these things, it was a crazy person; why should we be interested?" By bracketing the agent from the act, Ginsberg highlights the emotion immanent to each act. He gives those acts the character of inspiration; Carl Solomon becomes an Ezekiel or a Diogenes, whose dung-eating or public masturbation had higher meanings, almost artistic qualities, and can't be brushed off as lunacy. Although, on first reading, "Howl" seems to leave form behind and descend into the compulsive speech chaos of madness, its effect is carefully wrought in the poem's structure. Uniquely textured with anaphora and topical arrangement of chapters or stanzas, "Howl" liberates madness by giving it the gift of structure.
In respect to this topical structure, the first chapter bears special mention. There are two significant factors that contribute to our sense of its centrality to the poem. First, it is the first passage presented. The first two lines set the tone for the entire poem: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...." (126) Thus, our very first impression of the poem is of insanity and self-destruction. Secondly, it is more than three times as long as the second-longest chapter (the third), and constitutes more than half of the poem as a whole. Because the most robust section of the poem treats of this theme of internalized destructive impulse, our most lasting impression of the poem as a whole is of this theme. These formal elements force the theme of madness and self-destruction to the forefront.
~ syntax
Of the poem as a whole, this much can be said: "Howl" is a poem about madness, and the form it has been given is most suited to this study. It's written in free verse; without meter, it must be formalized along some other dimension. That formalization manifests differently in each chapter, but on the whole it is accomplished with repetition of words that play specific grammatical roles – names, adjectives, or clause structures. It is this particular formalization, ironically, that gives "Howl" its irrational, rambling feeling.
Of the poem's four chapters, the last three have the most straightforward use of repetition. In the second chapter, the evocation (or exorcism) of Moloch regulates the passage; the poet continually returns to that word as the name of the demonic principle he sees immanent in the social ills of 1950s America. The third chapter is an expression of sympathy with the mad, and Carl Solomon's name becomes the controlling power; Carl Solomon is the archetypal new sensitive American driven to madness, and so the expression of fraternity returns to his name. In both of these chapters, the nature of the repetition is basically the same: the name of the representative of the spirit inspiring the chapter – the spirit of rationalized death or the spirit of mad life – is chanted. In "Footnote to Howl," the word "holy" serves to free the expression of the sacred experience by controlling the language; it insinuates itself in every line because every experience expresses a sacred reality. In each of these stanzas, the repetition is obvious, and its formal purpose in the context of the section's topic is clear.
Again, the first chapter has features that highlight it for special consideration. The word by which repetition is established in this chapter is neither a name (as in the second and third chapters), nor an emotionally- charged expressive adjective (as in the "Footnote to Howl"); here it's a specifically grammatical repetition. This is, of course, the very traditional poetic device of anaphora, as Fussell points out (80); but it doesn't have a traditional effect in "Howl." The first chapter is given form by its past and present participles, adjectives, and above all, verbal clauses controlled by the relative pronoun, "who." Within each such clause, there is further internal repetition of grammatical form – for example, in the line "who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas..."(127) we see a repetition of objects of study. This structure is more complicated than that which we find in the other chapters, and moreso than the others partakes of that quality of insane speech. Although Fussell sees this repetition as an opportunity for Ginsberg to exploit the free verse tradition of enumeration (79), it also imparts a certain aphasic quality to the language. Speech is no longer one grammatical dimension, from subject to verb to object; although it's compressed back into a single line of text, the poem's sense advances, retreats, and branches out constantly in new semantic directions. In this way it mimics the consciousness of a madman, that pours through many parallel channels of meaning without being able to focus on any specific one.
Because the verbs in each relative clause take the simple past tense, there is also an ambiguity as to whether any given clause describes a single incident or an habitual cycle; the sense seems to vary from line to line. Most, like "who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York," (126) "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened..." (129), and "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" (130), seem to refer to specific incidents; others seem to refer to ongoing processes, like the line quoted above about occult studies (127). Still others seem to refer to habitual cycles, like "who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull," (126) where the plural "academies" implies this happened more than once.
In addition to its rambling sense, this use of "who" as the repeating unit has paradoxical effects. It puts an emphasis on verbs while retaining a grammatical reference to nouns; it presents us with actions, conjunctions of bodies and chemicals and energies and potato salads, and it echoes its own question: "Who is it that's doing this?" It's not the dregs to which the poet points – it's "the best minds of [his] generation." The relative pronoun shifts the emphasis away from the agent and onto the acts; we are not supposed to look at the agent to understand the act, but rather to look at the acts and understand the agent. Emphasizing the agent, saying on every line "Carl Solomon (or whoever) did this," would make it easy to dismiss these acts as being senseless; a reader could say, "We know who did these things, it was a crazy person; why should we be interested?" By bracketing the agent from the act, Ginsberg highlights the emotion immanent to each act. He gives those acts the character of inspiration; Carl Solomon becomes an Ezekiel or a Diogenes, whose dung-eating or public masturbation had higher meanings, almost artistic qualities, and can't be brushed off as lunacy.
Although, on first reading, "Howl" seems to leave form behind and descend into the compulsive speech chaos of madness, its effect is carefully wrought in the poem's structure. Uniquely textured with anaphora and topical arrangement of chapters or stanzas, "Howl" liberates madness by giving it the gift of structure.
Works Cited: Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter & Poetic Form. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979. Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems 1947-1980. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
Howl (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Howled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Howling.] [OE. houlen, hulen; akin to D. huilen, MHG. hiulen, hiuweln, OHG. hiuwilon to exult, bo owl, Dan. hyle to howl.]
1.
To utter a loud, protraced, mournful sound or cry, as dogs and wolves often do.
And dogs in corners set them down to howl. Drayton.
Methought a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me about, and howled in my ears. Shak.
2.
To utter a sound expressive of distress; to cry aloud and mournfully; to lament; to wail.
Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. Is. xiii. 6.
3.
To make a noise resembling the cry of a wild beast.
Wild howled the wind. Sir W. Scott.
Howling monkey. Zool. See Howler, 2. -- Howling wilderness, a wild, desolate place inhabited only by wild beasts. Deut. xxxii. 10.
© Webster 1913.
Howl, v. t.
To utter with outcry.
Philips.
Howl, n.
The protracted, mournful cry of a dog or a wolf, or other like sound.
A prolonged cry of distress or anguish; a wail.
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