Allen Ginsberg`s poetic influence on Amiri Baraka`s Somebody Blew up America.

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ALLEN GINSBERG’S POETIC INFLUENCE ON AMIRI
BARAKA’S “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
In En glish Letters

By
STEPHANUS EDY WINARTO
Student Number: 084214007

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2013
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I like them who entered the night but were afraid of darkness
-Alwi Atma Ardhana-

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy,
-Walt Whitman-

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope
completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

(1 Peter 1 : 13)

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For my beloved friends and family
Who art shining like the rising stars of the east.

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma :
Nama

: Stephanus Edy Winarto

Nomor Mahasiswa

: 084214007

Demi Pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah yang berjudul :

POETIC INFLUENCE ON AMIRI BARAKA’S “SOMEBODY BLEW UP
AMERICA”
Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan
kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,
mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan
data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau
media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu ijin dari saya maupun
memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai
penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal: 14-1-2013
Yang menyatakan,

(Stephanus Edy Winarto)

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this
undergraduate thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any
degree or other purposes.
I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own
work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have
been acknowledged.

Yogyakarta, 14 January 2013
The Writer,

Stephanus Edy Winarto

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks go to all who have read or commented on the drafts of this
undergraduate thesis from the first until this final script: it would be my honor to
thank firstly my advisor, Dr. F.X. Siswadi M.A. for his advice added by his
lovingly encouragement and technical corrections and Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani
S.S., M.Hum for her advices and patience as a reader. Then to the gorgeous
Abraham Aji, who tenderheartedly offered to me his opinion in the effort of
minimizing mistakes. My gratitude also goes to my friends Alwi, Dewi, Galang,
M. Luluk Artika and Wahyu Ginting who shared their readings and commentaries
upon the theory of poetry.
It is the Blessing upon me to ever have and meet these smart and beautiful
people, for whom I must be here and now salute them, for the bitter and sweet

memories; for the spirit and wisdom: both my parents Irmina Sunarti and Yohanes
Kartoyo for their great love and powerful life; brothers and sisters; Antonius’
family, Martina’s family, Rosalia’s family, Agustinus’ family, and Madam Rini
my former English teacher in Kolese Gonzaga for material and spiritual supports;
Father Hary Susanto, S.J. and Wahmuji for their enormous teachings; Kenan,
Herman, Natan, Saka, Pita, Adul, Destyan, Dede, Patrick, Brito, Fauzan, Kanzi,
Lando, Yoga, Simon, Matias, Dimas, Eileen, Vito, and Leo, for the best
friendships; M Ninik Sumarnik, duo SAC Paryo and Elis, and all fellows of
Sanata Dharma’s Faculty of Letters I’ve known and yet to know.
Stephanus Edy Winarto

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ………………………………………………………………… i
APPROVAL PAGE …………………………………………………………. ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE……………………………………………………… iii
MOTTO PAGE................................................................................................. iv

DEDICATION PAGE...................................................................................... v
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH
UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS ...………………………………………… vi
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY................................................................. vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………. viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………….. ix
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………… x
ABSTRAK……………………………………………………………………… xii
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION………………………………………………1
A. Background of the Study…………………………………………......2
B. Problem Formulation..………………………………………………..4
C. Objectives of the Study..……………………………………………..4
D. Definition of Term..…………………………………………………. 5
CHAPTER II : THEORETICAL REVIEW..................................................... 7
A. Review of Related Studies …………………………………………. 10
B. Review of Related Theories ……………………………………....... 10
1. The Anxiety of Influence ………………………………………….. 10
2. The Revisionary Ratios ……………………………………………. 12
C. Review on Historical/Biographical Background ………………….. 15
1. Amiri Baraka ……………………………………………………… 15

2. Allen Ginsberg …………………………………………………….. 18
D. Theoretical Framework ...…………………………………………... 20
CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY ………………………………………… 21
A. Object of the Study ………………………………………………... 21
B. Approach of the Study …………………………………………….. 22
C. Method of the Study ………………………………………………. 23
CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS …………………………………………………. 25
A. The Mapping on The Identification of Ginsberg and Baraka……….25
1. The Identification in The Beginning………………………………..26
2. The Identification in The Middle………………………………….. 32
3. The Identification in The Ending …………………………………. 37
B. The Mapping of Poetic Influence………………………………….. 42
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION………………………………………………. 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………51
APPENDICIES…………………………………………………………………53
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ABSTRACT

Stephanus Edy Winarto. Allen Ginsberg’s Poetic Influence on Amiri Baraka’s
“SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”. Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2013.
The background of this study is the story of an intra-poetic relationship
between Amiri Baraka and a tradition of poetic utterance in the modern American
poetry study. It provides the evidence of originality or the conception of Amiri
Baraka that differentiates him from other poets in the tradition of Modern
American Poet, in this research they are represented by the true poet of Beat
Generation, Allen Ginsberg. To rediscover Baraka’s originality is relevant
because of his invention in the Black Arts Movement that is always shadowed by
Beat Movement of Beat Generation writers. The approach of the study is
psychoanalytic delivered by Harold Bloom. In Harold Bloom’s theory that
influence is unavoidable though it makes a poet even more original, the researcher
proposes a reading of Amiri Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”, as
a demonstration of how Baraka achieves his own place for his mind by
challenging the precursor’s achievement, by Harold Bloom’s theory of poetry The
Anxiety of Influence.
The demonstration is divided into two research problems. They are the
focus center which is the process of identification of the two poets and the process
of poetic influence among them. The former aim is to identify the relation

between the poet and his precursor where the shared characteristics are manifested
in its structure and topic. The later aim is to measure the poetic breaking
experienced by the poet to creatively revise the precursor’s achievement and then
to achieve his own originality.
The analysis, as being an instance of practical criticism, tends to exemplify
a reading of a body of poem as its poet’s achieved poetic anxiety. As a theory, as
what would be demonstrated in analysis, the discussion includes the function of
poetical tropes, or figurative language as a means of defense mechanism, and each
operation within revisionary ratios. To perform the movement of the tropes, the
systematic analysis would be conducted in the beginning, middle, and ending of
the poem.
The answer of the first question is a proof that Allen Ginsberg influences
Amiri Baraka. The Ratio of Ginsberg’s portrayal of America was revised in the
beginning, middle, and the ending of “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA.”
Firstly Baraka swerved the idea of Ginsberg’s mind that is nothing into opposition
mind or negation mind. It manifested in an angry and independent voice, a view
on satanic America, and the unbearable burden of anger. The answer to the second
question is proof that Amiri Baraka’s originality was the result of Baraka’s
anxiety upon Ginsberg’s influence. First, Baraka’s mind was an angry voice
against the governmental system. He showed that the real presidents have been

murdered and governmental system has been controlled by rulers and bankers not
by democracy and people’s power. This trope was the clinamen of Ginsberg’s
powerless mind that is followed by the kenosis of Ginsberg’s will to be a
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president. Second, Baraka’s mind saw America through oppressions. This trope
was the tessera and askesis of Ginsberg’s “angelic”. Through tessera and askesis,
Baraka’s mind moves the sympathy toward communism and its good people by
mentioning more names than Ginsberg’s done and put them in the death row. This
trope is written to emphasize the sympathy by mentioning more facts about good
people who live and die in terror. Third, to close his poem, Baraka’s mind found
his own sublime of his unbearable burden manifested in the confusion of his role.
He is confused whether he is a good man who saw the evil and told the people like
an owl and a crazy dog, or he is an evil who poisoned people by the fire of anger.
It is the daemonization of Ginsberg’s unbearable identity in the ending of
“AMERICA”. Baraka revives the structure used by Ginsberg in writing
“AMERICA”. He finds his mind through the revisionary ratios in this structure.
This process made Baraka seems writing Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” by his own
ratio. Therefore the whole Baraka’s poem was the apophrades. It was Baraka’s
imaginative solitude and almost solipsism. This final ratio creates an effect that it
is Ginsberg whom Baraka had in mind and fought when he wrote his poetry.

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ABSTRACT
Stephanus Edy Winarto. Allen Ginsberg’s Poetic Influence on Amiri Baraka’s
“SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”. Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2013.

Latar belakang untuk studi ini adalah cerita tentang hubungan intra-puitis
antara Amiri Baraka dan tradisi tuturan puitisnya dalam studi puisi modern
Amerika. Ini memberikan bukti orisinalitas atau konsepsi Amiri Baraka yang
membedakan dirinya dengan penyair lainnya dalam tradisi kepenyairan Amerika
modern, yang dalam penelitian ini diwakili oleh penyair sejati Beat Generation,
Allen Ginsberg. Menemukan kembali orisinalitas Baraka adalah masalah yang
relevan karena penemuan Baraka dalam Black Arts Movement selalu dibayangi
oleh keberadaan Beat Movement dari para penulis Beat Generation. Pendekatan
dalam studi ini adalah psikoanalitik oleh Harold Bloom. Dalam teori puisi Harold
Bloom, bahwa pengaruh tidak dapat dihindari meskipun membuat seorang penyair
bahkan lebih orisinal, peneliti mengusulkan pembacaan puisi Amiri Baraka yang
berjudul "SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA", sebagai demonstrasi bagaimana
Baraka menemukan tempat sendiri untuk pikirannya dengan menghadapi
pencapaian pendahulunya, melalui teori puisi Harold Bloom; Kecemasan Akan
Pengaruh.
Demonstrasi ini dibagi menjadi dua rumusan masalah, yang fokusnya
terletak pada proses identifikasi atas dua penyair dan proses pengaruh puitis di
antara penyair tersebut. Tujuan pertama adalah untuk mengidentifikasi hubungan
antara penyair dan pendahulunya pada manifestasi karakteristiknya masingmasing dalam struktur dan topik puisi. Tujuan selanjutnya adalah untuk mengukur
pemisahan puitis yang dialami oleh penyair untuk merevisi pencapaian
pendahulunya secara kreatif dan kemudian mencapai orisinalitas.
Analisisnya, sebagai contoh kritik praktis, cenderung untuk mencontohkan
pembacaan tentang “sebadan-puisi” sebagai kecemasan puitis yang dicapai
penyairnya. Sebagai teori, seperti yang akan diperagakan dalam analisis, diskusi
akan meliputi fungsi kiasan puitis, atau bahasa kiasan sebagai sarana mekanisme
bela-diri, dan setiap operasinya dalam rasio revisioner. Untuk menunjukkan gerak
kiasan tersebut, analisis sistematis akan dilakukan dari awal, tengah, dan akhir
dari puisi itu.
Jawaban dari pertanyaan pertama adalah bukti bahwa Allen Ginsberg
mempengaruhi Amiri Baraka. Ratio dari citraan Ginsberg mengenai Amerika
terevisi di awal, tengah, dan akhir dari puisi “SOMEBODY BLEW UP
AMERICA”. Pertama pikiran Baraka membelokkan pikiran tak berdaya atau
ketiadaan Ginsberg menjadi pikiran oposisi atau pikiran negasi. Ini diwujudkan
dengan suara marah dan independen, pandangan akan sifat setani Amerika, dan
beban amarah yang tak tertahankan. Jawaban dari pertanyaan kedua adalah buktibukti bahwa orisinalitas Amiri Baraka merupakan hasil dari kecemasan Baraka
pada pengaruh Ginsberg tersebut. Pertama, pikiran Baraka adalah suara marah
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terhadap sistem pemerintahan. Dia menunjukkan presiden yang sebenarnya telah
dibunuh dan sistem pemerintahan dikendalikan oleh penguasa dan pemain di
Bank, bukan demokrasi dan kekuatan rakyat. Kiasan ini adalah clinamen atas
pikiran ketidakberdayaan Ginsberg diikuti dengan kenosis atas kehendak Ginsberg
untuk menjadi presiden. Kedua, pikiran Baraka melihat Amerika melalui
penindasan. Kiasan ini adalah tessera dan askesis dari gambaran "malaikat"-nya
Ginsberg. Melalui tessera dan askesis, pikiran Baraka menggerakkan simpati
terhadap komunisme dan orang-orangnya yang baik dengan menyebutkan lebih
banyak nama daripada yang disebutkan oleh Ginsberg dan meletakkannya di
deretan kematian. Kiasan ini ditulis untuk menekankan simpati tersebut dengan
menyebutkan lebih banyak fakta tentang orang-orang baik yang hidup dan mati
dalam teror. Ketiga, untuk menutup puisinya, pikiran Baraka menemukan
sublimnya sendiri mengenai beban tak tertahankan yang termanifestasi dalam
kebingungan akan peran dirinya. Ia bingung apakah ia adalah orang baik yang
melihat kejahatan dan mengatakan kepada orang-orang seperti anjing dan burung
hantu atau dia adalah orang jahat yang meracuni orang dengan api kemarahan. Ini
adalah daemonization atas beban identitas Ginsberg di akhir dari puisi
"AMERICA". Baraka menghidupkan kembali struktur yang dipakai Ginsberg
dalam puisi "AMERICA" dan menemukan dirinya dalam rasio revisioner
sehingga keseluruhan puisi Baraka adalah apophrades. Itulah kesendirian
imajinatif Baraka dan hampir solipsisme. Rasio akhir ini menciptakan efek bahwa
Ginsberg ada dan ditentang di pikiran Baraka ketika menulis puisinya.

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study
The bachelor thesis entitled Allen Ginsberg’s poetic influence on Amiri
Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”, deals with analysis of intrapoetic relationship of Allen Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” on Baraka’s poem. The
research is aimed to rediscover Baraka’s originality. It is relevant because Amiri
Baraka is the leading figure in Black American Arts Movement and
“SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA” is one of controversial and famous poems
in the contemporary American Poetry.
Influence is unavoidable; therefore originality is a place for the invention.
If a poet is influenced by other poets and becomes an echo of them, people would
call her/him epigone. She/he is called a mediocre imitator of somebody else,
especially of an important poet or philosopher. The quest of influence is important
in the literary studies to know the position of Amiri Baraka between modern
American poets. “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA” is an epigone of
“AMERICA” because Baraka was strongly influenced by Allen Ginsberg. To
prove that “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA” is not merely an epigone, the
research is following Harold Bloom’s theory of poetry The Anxiety of Influence.
To apply this theory and to analyze the 2 poems, the research searches for the
trope through analysis on the Six Revisionary Ratios.

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. Ginsberg is a poet of Beat Generation Writers. His “Howl” is the most
monumental one in the America’s modern literary tradition. He is a poet and
activist who criticized equality of human rights and American’s interference in
Vietnam War. His activism and poetry are acknowledged as the icon of Beat
Literary Movement. On the other hand, Baraka promoted Black Nationalist
Movement by establishing Black Arts Movements in 1965 in Harlem. He was
ordained as a Poet Laureate 2001 in New Jersey because of his contributions in
the cultural and literary activities.
In the pre-research, the researcher read the essay of Beat Generation. The
researcher found Gregory’s idea about the Beat Primitivism. Beat primitivism is
A critique of urban-industrial civilization and a search to recover authentic
human identity, to rediscover the nexus that joins individual human
beings, the human community, nature, and divinity (Gregory, 2009:177).
This definition led the researcher to sense the spirit of Beat Primitivism in reading
“SOMEBODY BLEW AMERICA”. The researcher searched the origin of this
poem in the Beat writers and found Ginsberg’s poems. Historical fact said that
Ginsberg was Baraka’s close friend. It is proved when Baraka said, “There is only
one white man in New York I really trust-that’s Allen Ginsberg” (Stone, 1964:
12). It showed his preference and opened the question about influence and
originality. After reading Ginsberg’s and Baraka’s poems, the researcher found
some identifications of Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA” with
Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” from instances of language and its meaning.
For Harold Bloom, Originality means “the poets’ conceptions of
themselves are revealed through their poems” (Bloom, 1979: 3). Through

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Bloom’s theory of poetry, the researcher found the creative acts of misreading.
Creative acts of misreading are the revisions of the ratios from the precursor to the
belated poet, as Bloom said, “Poetic warfare is conducted by a kind of strong
reading that I have called misreading” (Bloom, 1979:5). The six revisionary ratios
are the creative acts of reading. They performed in the analysis of tropes and
troping. The definition of trope in this research was the rhetorical or figurative
device used to refer something in the literary tradition. It was taken from Kenneth
Burke’s definition of form in literature, “Trope reveals in poetry if only it became
a place of invention or in the literary tradition called topos” (Bloom, 1979: 2).
Invention gratified in sequence means something new in the series of form.
According to Bloom, “poetic influence need not make poets less original;
as often it makes them more original, though not therefore necessarily better and
its profundities cannot be reduced to source of study, to the history of ideas, to
patterning of images” (Bloom, 1997:7). Bloom said that poetic influence or poetic
misprision is the study of the life-cycle of the poet as a poet. In this study, Bloom
agreed that influence is unavoidable. Furthermore through the anxiety of
influence, Bloom values the creative acts of misreading as a way to find a poet’s
conception of him/herself in the tropes and troping.
Baraka is unique though he cannot escape from Ginsberg’s influence. If
influence is unavoidable, how would the researcher rediscover the originality of
Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”? To answer the issue upon the
influence in Baraka’s poem, the researcher conducted the searching upon Baraka’s
originality to rediscover his inventions. This research also countered the

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assumption that a belated poem is an epigone or an imitator of the previous.
Bloom’s theory of poetry will be useful to trace the originality of Amiri Baraka in
the literary tradition. The background of study leads to some questions about the
trope and troping in Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”.

B. Problem Formulation
As the effort to rediscover originality in Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW
UP AMERICA”, the researcher made the analysis of poem into two main
problems. First, to manifest the close reading of poem into the quest of tropes and
the second, to follow the creative acts of misreading and to reveal its originality:
1. How are the central characteristics of Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” recognized in
Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”?
2. How is the originality of Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”
revealed?

C. Objectives of the Study
The two divisions of the analysis are necessary for a complete analysis of
the poetic influence through the relationship of a belated poem with its precursor:
how the poet in his poem achieved its anxiety, while creatively influenced by the
strong precursor? How those two processes made a space by speculating the
operation of its certain instances of language, revisionary ratios, and on certain
topological displacements in language that intervene between ratios.

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The first question aims to identify the characteristics of the belated poem
and the precursor by analyzing the body of the poem and seeking for the tropes.
These findings will be very useful to formulate the characteristics of the belated
poem and the precursor.
The second question aims to speculate, or to reveal the poetic influence in
the belated poem. It will perform the swerving of ideas from the precursor in the
belated poem. How the swerving performed the poetic influence and so revealed
the originality. Through this way, the researcher could find the originality of the
belated poem that made it a strong poem.

D. Definition of Term
1. Poetic Influence
Poetic Influence or intra-poetic relationship between a poet and the
precursor is the story of the anxiety of Influence. It is the story of creative process
of a poet revealed through his poem. Harold Bloom claimed it as the central issue
in the history of creative and critical misreading, which rises to the creative and
critical writing of it. In this case, any literary work cannot achieve meaning
without its connection to the precursors. For him, it was the distinctive qualities in
the aesthetical and antithetical nature of poetry and criticism compared with other
kinds of writings.
Harold Bloom took the word influence from Shakespeare. He explained in
his preface of The Anxiety of Influence page xii, “The flowing from the stars upon
our fates and our personalities is the prime meaning of “influence”, a meaning

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made personal between Shakespearean characters. Shakespeare also uses the word
“influence” to mean “inspiration,” both in the sonnets and the plays.” Bloom also
took the word “swerving”, “misprision”, and “mistaking” directly from Sonnet 87
as an ironical over-esteeming or over-estimation, in order to explain the word
“influence.” He claimed that Sonnet 87 is the allegory of any writer’s relation or
tradition, particularly as embodied in a figure taken as one’s own forerunner.

2. Originality
Originality is a place for a poet in the literary tradition that a poet different
from another poet. There is a debate on the existence of originality between
people from cultural studies and people from tradition of literary studies. People
from cultural studies did not belief in the existence of originality. On the other
hand people from the literary tradition originality became the central issue in the
relation between poets and poems. The definition of originality in this research is
taken from the study of literary tradition which is delivered by Harold Bloom. In
Bloom’s theory of poetry; The Anxiety of Influence, originality was explained as
the poet’s conception; “the poet’s conceptions of themselves are revealed through
their poems” (Bloom, 1979: 3).
In this definition, originality of certain poem is searched through quest
upon the poetic influence in the literary tradition. Because according to Bloom, to
deal with poetic influence need not make poets less original; as often it makes
them more original, though not therefore necessarily better and its profundities
cannot be reduced to source of study, to the history of ideas, to patterning of

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images (Bloom, 1997:7). From this understanding, poetic influence is unavoidable
and originality is revealed through the poet’s conception of themselves in dealing
with the poetic influence from the literary tradition that he was living in.
Bloom also took the idea of originality by delivering a concept of Poetic
Misprision that internalized strongly and intensely like in Sigmund Freud’s sense
of Family Romance. The main idea of it is the parent appearances as the child
fantastic interpretation (Bloom, 1979:3). Through this idea, than the logic came to
the poet’s way of reading his predecessor and by the same way created myth and
challenge it through their process of thinking and writing to find his/her own
conception. In this case, Bloom delivered the idea that ratios and language were
transferred and challenged from a poet to another poet as the result of
psychological aspect he called it fantastic interpretation or admiration toward the
precursor. Through this idea, then originality came up as the result of the poet’s
way to deal with this admiration to find a place for their mind.

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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW

A. Review of Related Studies
Research on poetic influence conducted in Harold Bloom’s theory is the
second research in Sanata Dharma University. The pioneer of this research in
English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University was Galang Fitri
Wijaya. After Galang, there was no research project on poetic influence until
2012. He conducted a research under the title The Poetic Breaking of Form of
Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (2010).
In his research, Galang tried to find the trace of Walt Whitman’s way of
thinking in the genius revolutionary poem of Ginsberg. Basically he searched the
identification of Walt Whitman’s central characteristics in Ginsberg’s “Howl” and
demonstrated the poetic breaking of form using the six revisionary ratios. He
successfully performed the story of poetic influence among Ginsberg and Walt
Whitman and supported the theory about meaning and relation among poets and
their poems. This research catapulted Ginsberg in the front line of American
Canon writers nearby Walt Whitman in the same line with Wallace Stevens, Hart
Crane, and John Ashbery.
Selwyn R. Cudjoe is another name which should be written in this review.
On November 26, 2002, Cudjoe read Baraka’s “SOMEBODY BLEW UP
AMERICA”. He was analyzing the poet’s way of writing to create certain effects.
He was concerned with the proclamation at the beginning and rhetorical questions

8

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strategy. Those ways created such urgency. Cudjoe also read this poem based on
the clue given by the poet, by quoting the poem as the basis of his further analysis.
Although the poet's explication of his text is not/should not be taken as
self-evident truth, anyone who wishes to understand what Baraka is about
in this poem cannot be unmindful of what he says about what he tried to
achieve in his poem... He says "the poem's underlying theme focuses on
how Black Americans have suffered from domestic terrorism since being
kidnapped into US chattel slavery,… historically, and at this very minute
throughout the US. (Cudjoe, “One way of reading “SOMEBODY BLEW
UP AMERICA””, December 14th 2002).
Cudjoe saw this poem related with the writer’s intention about “what he tried to
achieve in this poem.”
Sayulita, in the preface of Jonah Raskin’s American Scream used
Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” to talk about the relation of the cold-war and literary
creativity. “America when will we end the human war?” and “Go fuck yourself
with your atom bomb” were the direct sentences from Ginsberg’s “AMERICA” to
perform its relation. She explained that Ginsberg became Mr. America in this
poem and opened up all the taboos of America; queer, communist, read Marx, and
smoked marijuana, made him very controversial for the society. Therefore
“AMERICA” couldn’t be read on prime-time TV (Raskin, 2004: xii-xiv).
Olivia Abernethy in her undergraduate thesis entitled, “A Revolution
within A Revolution: African American and Women Beat Poets” acknowledged
Baraka and two other poets as epigones. She said in the conclusion, “The most
important aspect of these poets was and is their tenacious determination to absorb,
reflect, and challenge different aspects of society. Without this, poetry and
America would not be the same.” Abernethy in the conclusion declared that
poetry and America were same in the tradition of beat literary. Abernethy’s

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10

conclusion said that those African American and woman beat poets are not
inventing something new or just epigone of the early of beat writers.
According to the pre-research and review of related studies, these poems
are altruistic; not only telling about beauty and the poets’ mind, but also directly
communicate with the society about the poets’ conception in front of values of the
cultural war. In other words, these poems were prophetic and inviting people to
see the degradation of human values. These are the reasons why these poems were
controversial and considered dangerous. Ginsberg is found as an influence. By
making Ginsberg as the greatest of the dead poets for Baraka’s “SOMEBODY
BLEW UP AMERICA”, this research contributed the building of Ginsberg’s
literary canon. It is part of Ginsberg’s literary canon because Ginsberg’s
“AMERICA” is the precursor of “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA”.
The criticism and development of these related studies are built on the
researcher’s argument after the pre-research. The basic argument is that every
mind has its own strength though influence is unavoidable. Therefore, Baraka’s
mind, though unavoidably influenced by Ginsberg, has its own strength. Different
from Galang’s, researcher rejects Bloom’s cynical refusal upon the cultural war in
the literary tradition as stated by Bloom in the introduction of Western Canon; the
Books and Schools of the Ages. That poets’ conception cannot be separated from
their worlds makes cultural war a place to bloom for poetic influence and
invention of human conception toward themselves and their world.

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B. Review of Related Theories
1. The Anxiety of Influence
According to The Critical Tradition, Classical Texts and Contemporary
Trends edited by David H. Richter, 1998, Harold Bloom is represented by “A
Meditation upon Priority”, in the psychoanalytic theory. This text is also the
introduction to his poetry theory The Anxiety of Influence. This theory was born
through the insightful study of Romantic Poets. The researcher saw Percy Bysshe
Shelley’s thought in Harold Bloom’s attitude toward the text. Shelley honored the
ancient text as the pioneer of knowledge. The very idea of Shelley was the honor
toward ancient text, “Because the nature of the infancy of society made every
author be a poet, so that a poet was the pioneer of invention” (Shelley, “A Defense
of Poetry”, 1821). Therefore Bloom preferred to see Freud’s works through
Shakespearean theory rather than to see Shakespeare’s works through Freudian
theory and he built theory of poetry on the Shakespeare’s Sonnet 87 rather than on
the Freudian theory of psychoanalysis.
Bloom’s theory was explained in “Poetic Origins and Final Phases”,
another Bloom’s essay was compiled in Modern Criticism and Theory edited by
David Lodge. Bloom found the connection between poets and poems, “Poetic
strength comes only from the triumphant wrestling with the greatest of the dead,
and from an even more triumphant solipsism” (Lodge, 2000: 218). Furthermore,
he believed that the deepest desire of a poet was to be an influence and not to be
influenced. And even in the strongest one whom the desire was accomplished, the
anxiety of being formed by influence still persists (Lodge, 2000: 220).

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To understand how this theory works in practical level, the attitude of the
theory toward the text and language should be understood. According to this
theory, texts or literary works are the central of the theory. In other words, texts
are the starting point for the further body of the theory and its analysis. The
relationship between texts is in the dialectic interpretation between texts. It
functions to see the movement of sign from text to another text. It demonstrated in
“The Breaking of Form”; the methodology in the analysis of trope and troping.
Harold Bloom built his idea upon trope on his expansion toward John
Hollander’s theory upon tropes. Bloom claimed that trope was troped wherever
there was a movement from sign to intentionality, wherever the transformation
from signification to meaning was made by the rest of what aids the continuity of
critical discourse. Then he followed Kenneth Burke in seeing definition of form
in literature that trope is “an arousing and fulfillment of desire.” Bloom cited
directly from The Burkean formula; “A work has form in so far as one part of it
leads a reader to anticipate another part, to be gratified in sequence.” Trope
reveals in poetry if only it becomes a place of invention or in the literary tradition
called topos (Bloom, 1979:2). Later, he connected trope with psychic defense by
seeing the nature of each trope in the psychic defense.
Finally Bloom connected language, ego, and defense in his definition on
trope. This connection made trope in Bloom’s theory be the central characteristics
of poem. He argued rationale depended upon diachronic, rather than a synchronic
that would observe the changing nature of both linguistic trope and psychic
defense as literary history moved from ancient world to the enlightenment.

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Therefore, The Anxiety of Influence in its demonstration upon the texts was the
relation upon the trope and troping. The story of its relation then became the
literary history.
2. The Revisionary Ratios
The six revisionary ratios are manifestations of the poet’s anxiety. These
mechanisms will explain the poetic misreading and show how the poet dealt with
his anxiety of Influence. They were Clinamen or Poetic Misprision, Teserra or
Completion

a nd

Antithesis,

Kenosis

or

Repetition

a nd

Discontinuity,

Daemonization or the counter sublime, Askesis or Purgation and Solipsism, and
Apophrades or the return of the dead. Here is the explanation upon the six
revisionary ratios according to the Synopsis written by Harold Bloom in his
theory of poetry The Anxiety of Influence page 14-16;
a. Clinamen
Clinamen was a poetic misreading or misprision proper. Bloom took the
word from Lucretius, where it meant a “swerve” of the atoms so as to make
change possible in the universe. A poet swerved away from his precursor, by so
reading his precursor’s poem as to execute a clinamen in relation to it. This
appeared as a corrective movement in his poem, which implied that the precursor
poem went accurately up to a certain point, but then should have swerved,
precisely in the direction that the new poem moves (Bloom, 1997: 14).
b. Tessera
Tessera was a completion and antithesis; Bloom took the word not from
mosaic-making, where it was still used, but from the ancient mystery cults, where

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
14

it was meant a token of recognition, the fragment say of a small pot which with
the other fragments would re-constitute the vessel. A poet antithetically
“completed” his precursor, by so reading the parent-poem as to retain its terms but
to mean them in another sense, as though the precursor had failed to go far enough
(Bloom, 1997: 14).
c. Kenosis
Kenosis was a breaking-device similar to the fence mechanisms our
psyches employ against repetition compulsions; kenosis then was a movement
toward discontinuity with the precursor. Bloom took the word from St. Paul,
where it meant the humbling or emptying-out of Jesus by himself, when he
accepted reduction from divine to human status. The later poet, apparently
emptying himself of his own afflatus, his imaginative godhood, seemed to humble
himself as though he were ceasing to be a poet, but this ebbing was so performed
in relation to a precursor’s poem of ebbing that the precursor was emptied out
also, and so the later poem of deflation was not as absolute as it seemed (Bloom,
1997 :14).
d. Daemonization
Daemonization or a movement towards a personalized Counter-Sublime,
in reaction to the precursor’s Sublime; Bloom took the term from general NeoPlatonic usage, where an intermediary being, neither divine nor human, entered
into the adept to aid him. The later poet opened himself to what he believed to be
a power in the parent poem that did not belong to its poet, but to a range of being

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15

just beyond that precursor. The belated poet’s sublime turned against his
precursors’ sublime (Bloom, 1997: 15).
e. Askesis
Askesis, or a movement of self purgation which tended the attainment of a
state of solitude; Bloom took the term, general as it was, particularly from the
practice of pre-Socratic shamans liked Empedocles. The later poet did not, as in
kenosis, undergone a revisionary movement of emptying but of curtailing; he
yielded up part of his own human and imaginative endowment, so as to separate
himself from others, including the precursor, and he did it in his poem by so
stationing it in regard to the parent-poem as to make that poem undergone an
Askesis too; the precursor endowment was also truncated (Bloom, 1997: 15).
f. Apophrades
Apophrades or the return of the dead; Bloom took the word from Athenian
dismal or unlucky days upon which they had lived. The later poet, in his own final
phase, already burdened by an imaginative solitude that is almost a solipsism,
holds his own poem so opened again to the precursor’s work that at first readers
might believed the wheel has came full circle, and that readers were back in the
later poet’s flooded apprenticeship, before his strength begun to assert itself in the
revisionary ratios. But the poem was now held open to the precursor, where once
it was opened, and the uncanny effect was that the new poem’s achievement made
it seemed to us, not as though the precursor were writing it, but as though the later
poet himself had written the precursor’s characteristic work (Bloom, 1997:15-16).

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C. Review on Historical/Biographical Background
1. Amiri Baraka
Baraka’s biography was written in his official website, articles, interview
documents and books. The researcher concluded that Amiri Baraka formerly
known as LeRoi Jones; a poet, editor, play writers, musical critic, and social
activist. He was born at 1934. His father; Coyette LeRoy Jones, is a postal worker
and his mother Anna Lois Jones a social worker. He had lived on the street as his
beginning in New York City, associating with writers often connected to the Beat
literary movement in the late of 1950s (Lawlor, 2005: 11).
Jones graduated with honors in 1951 at age sixteen from Barringer High
School in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University in Newark on a
scholarship but later transferred to Howard University where he did not complete
a degree. Jones was a sergeant in air force. In 1957, he was discharged from
military service and began an artistic life in Greenwich Village (Lawlor, 2005:
11).
In the beginning of his artistic life, he was the editor of Yugen, a little
magazine that featured many writers of the Beat Generation. With Diane di Prima,
he edited Floating Bear, a mimeographed poetry newsletter that flourished
because of it spontaneity and immediacy. After the death of Malcolm X in 1965,
his vision about literary movement was changed and it led him to separate himself
from the Beats. He established the Black Arts Movement by founding the Black
Arts Repertory Theater-School, and participated in the rise of Black Cultural
Nationalism, taking the name Imamu (Spiritual leader) Ameer (Prince) Baraka

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(Blessed) in 1967; subsequently dropped the spiritual name and revised the
spelling became Amiri Baraka. In 1974, Baraka renounced in Black Nationalism
and declared himself as a Marxist-Leninist (Lawlor, 2005: 11).
The early works of Baraka were his declaration. Preface to a Twenty
Volume Suicide Note (1961) is his first collection of his poems which reveal his
close connection to the Beats. William Lawlor in his book Beat Culture said that
John Wieners, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg were the
people to whom he dedicated his poems. Some poems were written for his wife
and daughter but the other subjects are literary, social, and political subjects. His
works then continued to be the condemnation toward academics, established
authorities, Jews, whites, and middle class blacks. He ridiculed hypocrisy,
ignorance, or oppressive conduct. Though he separated himself from the Beats, he
met them again with Allen Ginsberg at the 92nd Street Y in New York City
(Lawlor, 2005: 11-12).
Allen Ginsberg is a very influential for Baraka. It is proved in his
reference of poet he called in some interviews that were documented in a book
entitled conversation with Amiri Baraka. When David Osman asked him about the
influence of being Afro-American to speech pattern in his writing, Baraka
answered, “I could hardly help it. There are certain influences on me, as a Negro
person, that certainly wouldn't apply to a poet like Allen Ginsberg. I couldn't have
written that poem "Kaddish," forinstance…Everything applies -- everything in
your life. Sociologically, there are different influences, different things that I've
seen, that I know, that Allen or no one knows” (Osman, 1960: 7). It is a strong

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evidence to say that Baraka was familiar with Ginsberg’s poem, and he had
anxiety to be influenced by Ginsberg.
Ginsberg is not the only one writer who was influential to Baraka. Baraka
had awareness of being influenced by other writer especially in his novel entitled
The System of Dante’s Hell. “I was trying to get away from the influence of
people like Creeley and Olson. I was living in New York then and the whole
Creeley-Olson influence was beginning to beat me up” (Benston, 1977 :106). He
added that he grew in the middle of two school: “I call the Jewish-Ethnicbohemian School (Allen Ginsberg and his group) and the Anglo-German Black
Mountain School” (Benston, 1977: 106). They are his friends and he noticed that
he wrote defensively and offensively at the same time because he was trying to
get away. “I literally decided to write just instinctively, without any thought to any
form or to any kind of pre-understanding of what I was shaping -- just write it
down” (Benston, 177: 106). The evidence above delivers Baraka’s awareness and
mechanism in writing his work.
Baraka’s passion on Black Arts Nationalism manifested in his political
campaign since 1970. Campaign of Kenneth Gibson for Mayor of Newark, New
Jersey was the political activity he dedicated for in, 1970. In 2001, he became the
Poet Laureate and composed “SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA” after
September 11, 2001 which involved him with controversy and direct text war with
American humanists and led to calls for his dismissal. Now he is a lecturer,
teacher, and activist (Lawlor, 2005: 11-12).

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2. Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg was born on 3 June 1926 to Louis and Naomi Ginsberg, secondgeneration of Russian-Jewish immigrant. His parents were left wing radicals with
an enthusiastic interest on modern thinking such as Marxism, vegetarianism,
nudism, and feminism. He wrote about his mother in his poems. In “AMERICA”,
he described his mother as an activist in communist cell meeting. His father was a
successful poet whose work appeared in a variety of well-respected publication
such as the New York Times Magazines (Lawlor, 2005: 117).
Ginsberg graduated from Columbia University as a scholar of law. His
ambition to become a lawyer quickly cast aside after he met Lucien Carr, Jack
Kerouac and William Burroughs discussing the new vision of literature. Jack
Kerouac invited Ginsberg to follow him in writing poetry. Burroughs, a thief,
drugs user, hustler, mobster, and a writer, influenced him in rebellious attitudes
(Lawlor, 2005: 117).
The dark images of Ginsberg in the society started when Jack Kerouac and
William Burroughs were arrested by the police as the material evidences of
Lucien Carr criminal in murdering David Kammerer. David Kammerer was killed
after he proclaimed his feeling to Lucien Carr and threatened him if Carr failed to
accept it. Being a homosexual at that time was something bad. In the same
situation, Ginsberg’s life and his sexual orientation with his companies; Jack
Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Peter Orlovsky were not accepted by society. Though
people looked down at him, Ginsberg was kind toward Herbert Huncke and
friends the burglar homeless by sharing his apartment to them. But as the
consequence his apartment becomes a place to store their stolen goods (Lawlor,
2005: 119).

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Ginsberg main activities were writing poetry and journal. However, he
was arrested by the police because the car that bringing stolen goods was
captured. Instead of jailed, the police sent Ginsberg to the psychiatric hospital just
after Columbia University’s faculty and attorney defend him on the trials of
Herbert Huncke for criminal cases. In the hospital, he met Carl Salomon a genius
man who shared arts and philosophy to him. He wrote the most monumental poem
“HOWL” for Carl Salomon after he went out of the hospital (Lawlor, 2005: 121).
Ginsberg went to Mexico, Africa, and India in order to search and learn
from the ancient wisdom. He became a teacher and several times went to Europe
and gave poetry writing lecture to the Senior High School students in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and London. He had a penchant for black culture- he loved folk,
jazz, and the blues. He travelled all the way to Dakar, Senegal to be among
Africans, and he moved to Harlem to be among urban black folk. But he never
boasting wanted to be Black like Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg’s political actions were
the campaign against Vietnam War. His campaign then widen to support the free
of speech, defending social satirist Lenny Bruce, battling New York City officials
who tried to restrict cabaret licenses, and acting as advocate for The Living
Theater (Lawlor, 2005: 122).
In the early morning hours 5 April 1997, Ginsberg died peacefully in his
sleep, surrounded by a handful of close friends. After a Buddhist funeral service,
his remains were cremated and his ashes distributed to his father gravesite at New
Jersey, to the Sacred Heart Buddhist monastery at Michigan, and the Rocky
Mountain Shambhala Center in Colorado (Lawlor, 2005: 131).

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D. Theoretical Framework
Analysis of the in intrinsic element is done in the pre-research by looking
on structure and figurative language.