H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
b. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 10 September 1886
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father
an astronomer
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mother’s family were prominent Moravians, artistic
and musical
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attended Bryn Mawr College – friends with William
Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound; had a brief engagement with Pound
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1906 withdrew from college; wrote stories and articles
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1910 – New York; writing free verse poetry, translating
German and Latin poems
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1911 – travels to Europe with Frances and Mrs. Gregg;
never returned to live in the U.S.
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settled in London; Pound provides introductions to
literary figures: Yeats, Ford Madox Ford, May Sinclair, F.S. Flint, Richard
Aldington
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1911-12 H.D., Pound, Flint and Aldington met to discuss
poetry, often in the British Museum, and formed the Imagist Movement
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Pound christened Hilda “H.D.” and assisted in getting
her work published
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1913 married Aldington; both major contributors to
Des Imagistes (1914)
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When Aldington was drafted, H.D. took over as literary
editor of the Egoist (1915-1917)
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translated Greek poetry, and published her own work,
Sea Garden (1916)
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1917 met D. H. and Freida Lawrence
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W.W. I trauma for H.D. – still birth of her first
child, estrangement from Aldington after his affair with Dorothy Yorke, death
of her brother in France, death of her father,
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Bryher, (Winnifred Ellerman) reads H.D.’s poems and
arranges to meet her
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influenza, birth of daughter, Perdita, from relationship
with Cecil Gray
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Bryher, H.D. and Perdita live together from 1920s
through the early 40s despite Bryher’s marriages to Robert McAlmon and Kenneth
Macpherson and H.D.’s relationships
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1919 – H.D. and Bryher visit the Scilly Isles – H.D’s
psychic experiences
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Bryher and H.D. travelled to Greece 1920, Egypt 1923
to see newly discovered tomb of King Tut
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In Corfu, H.D. has vision of projections on the wall,
confirmed by Bryher
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1921 – Hymen pub.
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1923 - lived in Paris briefly, but stayed in London
and Switzerland
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1924 – Heliodora and Other Poems; very popular
poet
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fiction of mid – late 20’s not well understood or
received -
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1925
Palimpset, 1928 Hedylus, 1928 Narthex
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1927-31 – wrote for Close-up,
avant garde cinema journal, made the film Borderline with Paul Robeson
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1932-42 – one book of poety, some children’s books,
a translation of Euripedes’s Ion and Levinson prize for poetry, but suffered
from writer’s block, residual anxiety from the war years
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1933, 1934 – extended stay in Vienna to work with
Sigmund Freud; Bryher paid for the visits, although she stayed in Switzerland;
experience memorialized in Tribute to Freud (1956)
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returned to London when W.W. II broke out; wrote,
Trilogy, The Gift, Bid Me to Live (roman à clef of W.W.I
and breakdown of her marriage)
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1945 breakdown, hospitalized in Switzerland
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1949 By Avon River
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1956 bed-ridden with broken hip, but continued to
write
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1958 End to Torment (1979)- memory of her early years with Pound; when
sent the draft, Pound replied that “Torment title excellent, but optimistic”
(foreword, End to Torment); recent version includes the contents of the
handbound book of poetry that Pound wrote for her in 1905-7, called Hilda’s
Book
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1960 – returns to U.S. to receive Award of Merit Medal
for Poetry
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1961 Helen in Egypt – uses alternative version
of Helen story that argues that Helen was never in Troy, but rather in Egypt
and that the Trojan war was fought over an illusion;
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Hermetic Definition
(1972); died of stroke September
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1871 Schliemann discovered ancient Troy and Mycenae,
1876 Sir Arthur Evans excavated Knossos - site of Minoan culture,
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1883 Sir William Petrie discovered pyramids of Giza
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1890 The Golden Bough - Sir James Frazer– cross
cultural study of fertility myths
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1895 The Egyptian Book of the Dead - E.A. Wallis
Budge
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1903 Prologemena to the Study of Greek Religion
–
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1906 Thrice Great Hermes Trismegistis - G.A.
Meade
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1920 From Ritual to Romance - Jessie L. Weston
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cultural fascination with myth, the occult, ancient
practices such as the Eleusinian mysteries combined with H.D.’s personal interest
in astronomy, astrology, seánces, spiritualism, psychoanalysis, Tarot, mysticism,
and her Moravian Christian roots
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H.D.’s trauma from W.W.I compounded by W.W.II situation
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London was bombed almost every night for 9 months
between Sept. 1940 and May 1941
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Eliot and H.D. watch the Oct. bombing from apts. about
1 mile apart
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H.D. wrote [1], [21], and [22] of WDNF after
first three of Four Quartets pub.
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Eliot
pub. Little Gidding, H.D. pub. [4], [6] of WDNF
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TA rewrite of Little Gidding
(Cyrena Pondrom)
1944 The Walls Do Not Fall, 1945 Tribute
to the Angels, 1946 Flowering of the Rod
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H.D.’s idea of time: palimpsest, all time present
simultaneously; spatial rather than linear
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myths are organizing principles that describe phenomena;
manifest in different cultures with some variety, but reveal the same basic
elements.
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eg. Isis/Osiris = Myrrha/Adonis = Mary/Christ: mother
who gives birth to a male resurrection god;
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Mercury = Hermes = Thoth: messenger figure who is
associated with writing, alchemy
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her goal is to retrieve myths of the past to adjust
western thought to recall the feminine presence in the divine pantheon: no womb,
no tomb.
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explores and unites myths of Greek, Egyptian, Judeo-Christian
sources with the Eleusinian Mysteries, Gnosticism, the Hermetic tradition, the
apocryphal Pistis Sophia and The Gospel of the Birth of Mary to
legitimize the female prophetic and poetic voice
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develops a syncretic religious vision
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seeks to balance transcendent, spiritual, hierarchical
masculine divinity which emphasizes linear time with God that is also immanent,
anchored in the body and earth, inclusive, feminine, and focused on resurrection
and rebirth