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America (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Poem

Allen Ginsberg’s “America” presents a sharp critique of American culture delivered by someone who has almost wholly repudiated its values. The poem’s speaker addresses America directly, as if he were delivering a lecture or a sermon to the nation itself, rather than to its people. The nation’s aggressive anticommunist foreign policy and its culture of materialism and conformity are the primary targets of the speaker’s harsh attack.

The poet emphatically denounces America’s Cold War foreign policy. “America when will we end the human war?” he...

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