T.S. Eliot's

             Eliot's The Wasteland and the first section of Allen Ginsberg's Howl visions of the world through the eyes of the poet are revealed. Both men wrote in a post-war era. Eliot wrote The Wasteland following World War I, although he denies that the poem was about the war, there is evidence of the overall feeling during this post-war period. Similarly, Ginsberg wrote Howl following World War II. The times were quite different, but the feelings of the poets, quite similar. While the two men way have been separated by decades, each captures accurately the atmosphere of a world following a war as well as the overall feeling of the nation and its people.
             Each poet broke barriers with their poetry. According to the text, "T.S.Eliot's The Wasteland changed the course of American literal history." (Harper 1992) The text also states, "Allen Ginsberg brought a raw new power into American poetry with the publication of Howl. Both poets are even compared to Whitman, in the sense that they were groundbreaking. According to the text, both men even lead similar lives. Both men attended Ivy League schools where they were misunderstood and much preferred writing for themselves than for a degree. Each man was considered eccentric for the time. Eliot suffered from mental problems and married a woman who also did. His marriage was very unstable at times. Ginsberg had a similarly torturous love life. He was outwardly homosexual, which was not widely accepted at the time, and suffered greatly because of it. While their writing holds a similar subject manner, the styles are completely different. But even with all these similarities between the two, variations in their writing are quite noticeable. Ginserberg's Howl seems to pick up where Eliot's The Wasteland left off. Eliot wrote during a period of modernism. But Ginsberg appears to shun modernist views, just as the modernists had done to romantic views.