To Aunt Rose (1958). Summary and Description

“To Aunt Rose,” one of the two great elegies that appear in Kaddish and Other Poems (1961), laments the loss of Ginsberg’s aunt, his father’s sister. She died when Ginsberg was just 14, but her memory stayed with him throughout his life, as he writes, “I see you walking still, a ghost on Osborne Terrace.” Using a brief series of specific details, Ginsberg gives the reader an entire history of his life with this woman, from an experience in his early puberty to his visit to her in the hospital at the end of her life.

Ginsberg composed “To Aunt Rose” (and many of the poems from Kaddish) while on an extended stay in Europe in 1957. Experiencing cities so rich in history, some of which, such as London, had been devastated by World War II, led Ginsberg to conclude that politics was destroying the world. He felt that as a poet he had the responsibility to take over where the leaders of the human race had fallen short. Ginsberg’s struggle with history and political affairs is evident in “To Aunt Rose” with its many historical references. Rose was politically active in her life, and her husband was involved in the Communist Party. As though to comfort the deceased woman in a world gone awry, he assures her that “the war in Spain has ended long ago.”

Furthermore, Ginsberg uses Aunt Rose’s death to signify the collapse of various other structures in his life. For instance, he writes, “Hitler is dead, Hitler is in Eternity; Hitler is with / Tamburlane and Emily Bronte.” Tamburlane is the 14th-century Mongol conqueror; when he is juxtaposed with the British author Emily Bronte the reader is prompted to think of him in literary terms, as in Christopher Marlowe’s 16th-century play about the historical figure. Thus, Ginsberg signifies the death not only of Adolf Hitler but also of the proponents of antiquated styles of literature.

In the next stanza, Ginsberg returns to more personal issues and moves on to discuss various aspects of death in his own family. He mentions his father, “the Poet,” who visits Rose to tell her about his book being published by Liveright. Ginsberg, though, retorts, “Hitler is dead and Liver- ight’s gone out of business,” as his father’s writing career has been laid to rest as well. Ginsberg goes on to update Aunt Rose on the other failures of the family, including Uncle Harry’s business’s folding, Claire’s decision to quit school, and his grandmother Buba’s removal to a retirement home.

The elegy mourns not just the death of Aunt Rose, but the dissolution of Ginsberg’s family in various other ways as well. Despite its somber subject matter, though, “To Aunt Rose” demonstrates Ginsberg’s mastery of the elegiac form and is considered by his biographer Michael Schumacher “one of Ginsberg’s loveliest early works.”

For Discussion or Writing
1. Compare and contrast “To Aunt Rose” with “Kaddish,” Ginsberg’s elegy for his mother. Aside from obvious structural differences, how do the poems differ in terms of the way Ginsberg portrays the two women? And how does Ginsberg portray the ways in which both women had an effect on him, particularly with regard to politics?

2. Compare “To Aunt Rose” with Dylan Thomas’s “After the Funeral (In Memory of Ann Jones),” Thomas’s poem composed for his own deceased aunt. What similarities can you find? What differences?