1,547 research outputs found
H.D: sublimity and beauty in her early work (1912-1925)
No full textThe purpose of this thesis is to study the poetry written by H.D. between 1912- 1925 in relation to two Romantic categories: beauty and sublimity. I shall attempt to show how H.D. subverts and revises the Romantic sublime offering alternatives that can be identified with a "female sublime". A direct consequence of such revision will be her commitment to beauty, which acts in her poems as a generative drive. Her understanding of beauty will be shown to have its roots in Sappho, Plato and the Victorian Hellenists, among others, and to have undergone analogous transformations to those of sublimity. Chapter I reopens the debate around Imagism and Imagist poetry showing that the problem of defining what Imagism is or was originates in the overwhelming authority of theory versus praxis. My goal is to deconstruct the critical fallacies on which Imagism has been built and to free the poetry which it represents. This allows me to question the myth of H.D. as "Imagiste" and to open her early poetry to new readings and interpretations. In Chapter n, I review the theoretical background to the aesthetics of the sublime represented by Longinus, Burke, Kant and Wordsworth. I also establish the critical frame within which this research will take place, drawing on Thomas Weiskel, Patricia Yaeger and Joanne Diehl. I initiate a study of sublimity in H.D.'s first volume, Sea Garden, and show the alternative treatment that this Romantic genre receives from this female poet. H.D.'s revisions of the Romantic sublime take us in Chapter m to a study of her poetics, as presented in her essay "Notes on Thought and Vision". I discuss a variety of sources for the composition of these "Notes", such as Havelock Ellis' influence, H.D.'s letters to John Cournos and her friendship with D.H. Lawrence. I show how H.D. understands artistic and poetic creativity as 'vision' and how the recovery of the abject female body allows her to formulate a notion of creativity that transcends gender. Chapter IV, pursues H.D.'s transformations of the Romantic sublime in Hymen, and presents Sappho as a model for the fusion of sublimity, love and eroticism in the poems of this volume. Chapter V begins with a theoretical discussion surrounding the aesthetics of the beautiful in relation to Chapter II. It continues with H.D.'s understanding of beauty within her essays, in particular, "Responsibilities", "Notes on Thought and Vision" and "Notes on Euripides, Pausanius and Greek Lyric Poets". In the light of recent work on Pater's masculine model of Hellenic beauty, I discuss H.D.'s own configuration of beauty
Touching Freud's dog: H.D.'s tactile poetics
No full text"Do not touch me", Frau Emmy warns Freud in 1889. "Do not touch", Freud echoes in 1933. This time, he is referring to his pet chow, Yofi, warning H.D. that "she snaps - she is very difficult with strangers". Examining the prohibition in light of work by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, this article charts the withdrawal that always interrupts touch. Despite Freud's taboo, however, H.D.'s writing seeks to make contact in strange and unnerving ways. Developing Julia Kristeva's account of the semiotic, this paper proposes a literature of touch. Reading H.D.'s poems, alongside Tribute to Freud, and her letters, the author demonstrates that H.D.'s poetics are always haunted by the very (im)possibility of contact
Modernist posthumanism in Moore, H.D., and Loy
No full textThis dissertation examines modernism, particularly modernist encounters with technology and the body, through the lens of posthumanist thought; the theories and lexicon of posthumanism illuminate modernist poetic encounters with forms of alterity and in so doing modernism and posthumanism reconfigure one another. Each of the project’s three chapters examines the work of a different writer—Marianne Moore, H.D., and Mina Loy—by way of a different strand of posthumanist thought, ranging from Donna Haraway’s work with companion species, to N. Katherine Hayles’s theories on code and embodiment, to Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanist investigations of necropolitics. I read Moore’s, H.D.’s, and Loy’s poetic texts as articulating posthumanist, ethical strategies that, through forms of alternative embodiment, expand beyond binary definitions of self and other, interrogate structures of power that perpetuate these definitions, and imagine bodily identities—particularly for women, and particularly through poetic form—that resist and fall outside of such containing, oppressive forces. This project also argues throughout that poetry is particularly important to these writers’ modernist posthumanism. The first chapter focuses on Marianne Moore and her so-called “animiles”—her poems that depict animal subjects— rereading established narratives about Moore and her modernism. Although criticism has often aligned Moore with certain facets of humanist thought, I argue that Haraway’s concept of posthumanist “contact zones” is in fact more appropriate to describe her poetic work’s relationship to the animal domain. What I read as Moore’s prosthetic, figurative language and her mechanical syllabic metre hyperextend and embody these animals alternatively in non-normative ways, rendering them ultimately unknowable, so that these animals and the poems’ own forms frustrate contained narratives about the other or the “whole body.”Chapter Two examines H.D.’s roman à clef Asphodel through Hayles’s How We Became Posthuman, tracing how the protagonist Hermione seeks out the universal qualities of Morse code in order to create a “spiritual Esperanto.” Although this project fails, Hermione’s engagement with Morse code nonetheless constructs a poetic, technological, and embodied language out of this code. In Asphodel, the language of Morse code has materiality and is rooted in the body; in my reading, Hermione likewise engages in a form alternative embodiment via Morse code that creates space for female identity outside of patriarchal structures while acknowledging the pain of the subjugated body.As the last full chapter of this project, Chapter Three examines the role of death in Mina Loy’s poetry through Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanist work with necropolitics. Loy’s husband Arthur Cravan disappeared off the coast of Mexico in 1918 and was presumed dead. This situation, while tragic for Loy, provides a critical spur for exploring Loy’s posthumanist, necropolitical treatment of the ghostly body in death. Loy’s involvement in Italian Futurism’s and Christian Science’s technological and bodily discourses, as well as her work with modernist impersonality, informs her handling of this alternative body. The project’s coda moves from modernist posthumanism towards what I offer as a posthumanist way of reading, inspired by contemporary work in the digital humanities, that explores the layers of H.D.’s Madrigal Cycle through topic modeling and the intersections of close, human reading and distant, machine reading. In my reading, topic modeling’s machine readings can productively reshape traditional modes of scholarship and interpretation, allowing us to think of the texts¸ for instance, as word clouds and lexical connections instead of as primarily biographically-produced material, opening up new pathways to interpretation that also connect the organic to the mechanical.Cette dissertation examine le modernisme sous l’optique de la pensée post-humaniste, particulièrement des rencontres modernistes avec la technologie et le corps; les théories et le lexique du post-humanisme illuminent les rencontres poétiques modernistes en se préoccupant foncièrement des formes d’altérité, et, ce faisant, reconfigurant le modernisme et le post-humanisme. Chacun des trois chapitres du projet examine le travail d'une différente auteure – Marianne Moore, H.D. et Mina Loy – en conjonction avec un différent courant de pensée post-humaniste, traitant d’œuvres aussi diverses que le travail de Donna Haraway, les théories de N. Katherine Hayles, et les enquêtes post-humanistes de Rosi Braidotti. Je soutiens que les textes poétiques de Moore, d’H.D. et de Loy, en présentant des formes de corporéités alternatives, articulent des stratégies éthiques post-humanistes qui développent des définitions de l’être et de l’Autre qui échappent aux binaires, interrogent les structures de pouvoir qui perpétuent ces définitions, et imaginent des identités corporelles – particulièrement pour les femmes, particulièrement en prosodie – qui résistent et évadent ces forces oppressives. En effet, ce projet soutient que la poésie est particulièrement importante pour le post-humanisme moderniste de ces écrivains. Le premier chapitre se centre sur Marianne Moore et ses «animiles» – ses poèmes qui représentent des sujets animaux – réinterprétant les notions reçues au sujet de Moore et sont modernisme. Bien que les critiques littéraires ont souvent aligné Moore avec certains aspects de la pensée humaniste, je soutiens que le concept post-humaniste des «zones de contact» de Haraway est en fait plus approprié pour décrire la relation de son œuvre poétique au domaine animal. Le langage de Moore, que je décris comme étant prosthétique et figuratif, et son mètre syllabique mécanique deviennent le corps imaginé de ces animaux, alternant entre de différents modèles non-normatifs, ce qui les rend ultimement insondables. Ces animaux et les formes des poèmes frustrent donc les attentes d’un narratif prescrit au sujet de l’Autre, ou du corps soi-disant entier. Le deuxième chapitre examine le roman à clef Asphodel d’H.D. en tirant des théories de Hayles présentées dans How We Became Posthuman. L’œuvre poétique décrit le cheminement de la protagoniste Hermione, qui se penche sur les qualités universelles du code Morse pour créer un «Esperanto spirituel.» Bien que ce projet échoue, l’engagement d’Hermione avec le code Morse en façonne cependant un langage poétique, technologique et corporel. Selon mon interprétation, Hermione participe à une forme d’incarnation physique alternative par l’entremise du code Morse, créant ainsi un espace pour l’identité féminine au-delà des structures du patriarcat, tout en reconnaissant les douleurs du corps subjugué. Comme dernier chapitre du projet, j’examine le rôle de la mort dans la poésie de Mina Loy en tirant de l’ouvrage post-humaniste de Rosi Braidotti sur les nécro-politiques. L’époux de Mina Loy, Arthur Cravan, est disparu au large des côtes du Mexique en 1918, et fût présumé mort. Cette situation, bien que tragique pour Loy, offre une perspective générative aux critiques littéraires intéressées par l’attitude poétique de Loy envers le corps et la mortalité, et par son exploration du corps spectral. L’investissement de Loy dans les discours du futurisme italien et de la Science chrétienne sur le corps et la technologie informe sa perspective artistique sur ces types de corporéitésLe coda du projet passe du modernisme post-humaniste à une méthodologie littéraire post-humaniste, inspirée par des développements contemporains dans le champ des humanités numériques. J’explore les différents aspects du « Madrigal Circle» d’H.D. avec l’aide de techniques de modélisation numérique par sujet, en reliant cette approche plus mécanique à un mode de lecture attentive plus humain
H.D. : her struggle against imagism
No full textThe thesis firstly defines Imagism in theory and discusses it in practice. It then examines H.D.'s development from her most Imagist volume Sea Garden to her later, increasingly less Imagist volumes Trilogy, Helen in Egypt and Hermetic Definition. It indicates the particular form which H.D.'s Imagism takes and the reasons for her dissatisfaction with it as a technique. It shows that her continuing exploration of her inner world made the rigorously objective and definitive nature of Imagism increasingly inappropriate to her aims.The thesis explores H.D.'s interests in magic, alchemy, the occult and various forms of religion and shows that she found justification for these interests in the theories of Freud and Jung. It suggests a connection here with the interests of Symbolist poets and stresses, in this way, the incompatibility between these interests and 'Imagism - which has an implicit view of experience of its own and one fundamentally opposed to that of Symbolism.The thesis charts H.D.'s attempts to modify her Imagism, to make it more flexible, as the prerequisite to the expression of these mystical interests. It notes her failures and successes and indicates the considerable progress that she made in the direction of enlarged range. It notes the limits of this range - especially her lack of interest in human psychology in its social forms. It notes, also, that Imagism remained, even at the end of her life, a constituent part of her poetry, although Helen in Egypt and 'Hermetic Definition' show her using it more sparingly, and with much more consciousness of its particular usefulness
H.D. : her struggle against imagism
No full textThe thesis firstly defines Imagism in theory and discusses it in practice. It then examines H.D.'s development from her most Imagist volume Sea Garden to her later, increasingly less Imagist volumes Trilogy, Helen in Egypt and Hermetic Definition. It indicates the particular form which H.D.'s Imagism takes and the reasons for her dissatisfaction with it as a technique. It shows that her continuing exploration of her inner world made the rigorously objective and definitive nature of Imagism increasingly inappropriate to her aims.The thesis explores H.D.'s interests in magic, alchemy, the occult and various forms of religion and shows that she found justification for these interests in the theories of Freud and Jung. It suggests a connection here with the interests of Symbolist poets and stresses, in this way, the incompatibility between these interests and 'Imagism - which has an implicit view of experience of its own and one fundamentally opposed to that of Symbolism.The thesis charts H.D.'s attempts to modify her Imagism, to make it more flexible, as the prerequisite to the expression of these mystical interests. It notes her failures and successes and indicates the considerable progress that she made in the direction of enlarged range. It notes the limits of this range - especially her lack of interest in human psychology in its social forms. It notes, also, that Imagism remained, even at the end of her life, a constituent part of her poetry, although Helen in Egypt and 'Hermetic Definition' show her using it more sparingly, and with much more consciousness of its particular usefulness
Cinematic projections in the poetry of H.D., Marianne Moore, and Adrienne Rich
No full textThis dissertation examines the influence of film on the poetry of H.D., Marianne Moore, and Adrienne Rich. It builds on scholarship by Susan McCabe (2005), Lawrence Goldstein (1994) and others, who have traced the way twentieth-century American poets reacted formally to film culture in their writing. My project responds to the call of the editors of the volume of Close Up 1927-1933: Cinema and Modernism for critics to interrogate how authors harnessed the aesthetic and political possibilities opened up by cinema. This study draws from theories of feminist film phenomenology by Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks to analyze the aims and arguments of the texts.
The literary works studied include: H.D.’s Sea Garden, “Projector” series, Trilogy, Helen in Egypt, and film essays; Marianne Moore’s animal poems from the 1930s and early 1940s and film essays; and Adrienne Rich’s The Will to Change. This dissertation argues that the poets drew from film to renovate their poetic vision and forms and ply at questions of power, visuality, and bodies. The poems articulate an awareness of the filmic gaze and how it constructs feminine or animal others. Through careful analysis of the poems, this dissertation locates each poet’s particular rapport with film and how it influenced her literary style and prompted her to challenge dominant patriarchal scripts.
This dissertation makes several original contributions to twentieth-century Anglo-American poetry scholarship. It sets these three authors alongside one another to reveal how their engagements with film inspired their poetics and politics at various points throughout the twentieth century. The conclusions herein determine how the poets turned to film to construct their poetic projects. The dissertation offers new readings of the work of H.D., Moore and Rich as queer women poets invested in film culture.Graduat
Asphodel H.D.
No full textDESTROY, H.D. had pencilled across the title page of this autobiographical novel. Although the manuscript survived, it has remained unpublished since its completion in the 1920s. Regarded by many as one of the major poets of the modernist period, H.D. created in Asphodel a remarkable and readable experimental prose text, which in its manipulation of technique and voice can stand with the works of Joyce, Woolf, and Stein; in its frank exploration of lesbian desire, pregnancy and motherhood, artistic independence for women, and female experience during wartime, H.D.\u27s novel stands alone. A sequel to the author\u27s HERmione, Asphodel takes the reader into the bohemian drawing rooms of pre-World War I London and Paris, a milieu populated by such thinly disguised versions of Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, May Sinclair, Brigit Patmore, and Margaret Cravens; on the other side of what H.D. calls the chasm, the novel documents the war\u27s devastating effect on the men and women who considered themselves guardians of beauty. Against this riven backdrop, Asphodel plays out the story of Hermione Gart, a young American newly arrived in Europe and testing for the first time the limits of her sexual and artistic identities. Following Hermione through the frustrations of a literary world dominated by men, the failures of an attempted lesbian relationship and a marriage riddled with infidelity, the birth of an illegitimate child, and, finally, happiness with a female companion, Asphodel describes with moving lyricism and striking candor the emergence of a young and gifted woman from her self-exile. Editor Robert Spoo\u27s introduction carefully places Asphodel in the context of H.D.\u27s life and work. In an appendix featuring capsule biographies of the real figures behind the novel\u27s fictional characters, Spoo provides keys to this roman à clef.https://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/books/1017/thumbnail.jp
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Figuring woman (out): Feminine subjectivity in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and H.D.
No full textHistorically, women have not been "speaking subjects" but "spoken objects" in Western culture--the ground on which male-dominated constructions have been erected. In literature, women have been conventionally held as the silent and silenced other. Lyric poetry especially has idealized not only the entrenched figures of masculine subject/feminine object, but poetry itself as the site of prophecy, vision, Truth. Most dramatically in lyric poetry then, the issue of women as subjects has been collapsed into Woman as object, that figure who has been the sacrifice necessary for the production of lyric "song" and the consolidation of the unified masculine voice. It has thus been difficult for women poets to take up the position of speaking subject, most particularly because of women's problematic relationship to Woman. Recent feminist theorists have explored female subjectivity, how women put into hegemonic discourse "a possible operation of the feminine." This dissertation analyzes that possibility in poetry as exemplified in the works of Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and H.D. I contend that these paradigmatic American poets constitute speaking subjects in their poetry that both figure Woman conventionally and reconfigure it, i.e. subvert the stability of those representations, thereby disturbing our view. I argue that this double identification produces, in effect, a divided or split subjectivity that is enabling for the female speaker. As an alternative to the traditionally specularized figure of Woman then, such a position opens up distinctly counter-hegemonic spaces in which to constitute the female subject, rendering problematic readerly consumption of the image of Woman as a totality. I explore the attempts to represent women's difference differently--the tenuous accession to, rejection of, or play with the lyric "I" in these poets' works. Dickinson, Moore, and H.D. reconfigure Woman and inscribe female speakers as grammatically and rhetorically, but not necessarily visually, present, thereby frustrating patriarchal economies of mastery and possession
Modernist women's memoir, war and recovering the ordinary : H.D.'s The Gift
No full textA literary criticism of the book "The Gift," by H.D. is presented. The author discusses the contrast of war with everyday life in literature and the depiction of war by women authors. She comments how the book, a memoir of H.D.'s experiences during the bombing of London, England in World War II, illustrates H.D.'s concepts of creativity and psychological healing
Modernist Women Poets
No full textThis Special Issue showcases poets who enhance the breadth of modernist literary practices. The cohering concept is a complex relationship to both gender and modernity through original experiments with language. Leading scholars explore writers who both fit and extend orthodox modernist histories: Marianne Moore, H.D., Edna St Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Katherine Mansfield, and Charlotte Mew were born around the cusp of the twentieth century and flourished during the 1920s and 1930s; Lynette Roberts, Helen Adam and Hope Mirrlees were contemporaries but publishing or recognition came later; the next generation can include Gwendolyn Brooks, Stevie Smith and Muriel Spark; Veronica Forrest-Thomson represents a third generation who published into the 1980s, while Frances Presley and M. NourbeSe Philip hinge this group with the contemporary poets Carol Watts and Natasha Trethewey, whose works continue and rejuvenate progressive stylistics. The essays offer new readings of both well-known and unfamiliar poets. They are truly groundbreaking in plundering diverse theoretical fields in ways that disturb any lingering notions of a homogenized women’s poetry. The authors supplant into literary poetic analysis notions of geometry and mathematics, maritime materialities, tourism and taxonomy, architecture, classicism, folk art, Christianity and death, whimsy and empathy
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