Product Description
This reissue of the classic "Trilogy" by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961), now includes a large section of referential notes for readers and students, compiled by Professor Aliki Barnstone. As civilian war poetry (written under the shattering impact of World War II). "Trilogy's" three long poems rank with T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" and Ezra Pound's "Pisan Cantos." The first book of the Trilogy, "The Walls Do Not Fall," published in the midst of the "fifty thousand incidents" of the London blitz, maintains the hope that though "we have no map; / possibly we will reach haven,/ heaven." "Tribute to Angels" describes new life springing from the ruins, and finally, in "The Flowering of the Rod"--with its epigram "...pause to give/ thanks that we rise again from death and live."--faith in love and resurrection is realized in lyric and strongly Biblical imagery. ... Read more

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HD's Masterpiece
This is one of the classics of the 20th century; it is her most beautiful and mature work.

A Counterpoint to Eliot's Four Quartets
H.D.'s "Trilogy" was written about the same time as Eliot's "Four Quartets."

It's a shame H.D.'s war-poem/philosopy-poem isn't as well known as Eliot's.

Eliot deals with time and timelessness--or the eternal within time--and while his verse is very seductive and beautifully interweaves the abstract and the concrete, it merely points to sublimity, never really reaches it.

H.D.'s "Trilogy," really reaches it.There are many many epiphanies made concrete, and her very simple but shattering verse actually takes you to them.

This is a marvelously fluent poem.Yes, there are allusions, but they are simple and bonus, rather than essential.

It is one of those poems that is quite clear immediately, yet repays reading after reading.

It's a pity so few current poets write with such depth and breadth--to say nothing of such passion.

The Violence Drove Me Inward
Poems of angels and gems and fragrance and stars, all written on the downward slope of WWII.H.D. praises the life that survives, the mythic returns of Amen-Ra and Christ, which is also the first budding of spring.London joins in these poems with Karnak and St. John's second city, Paradise--a resurrection of "our earth before Adam," that "grain or seed/opened like a flower."Angels and Magi bring their usual good news, but the last word belongs to Mary Magdalene and the goddesses behind her, shifting from Isis to Venus to H.D. herself.The thick web of allusions reads at times like a parody of Modernist excess, but the impulse behind them (and these were written quickly, after a long dry spell) is more inspired than erudite.H.D. improvised a religion of her own that enfolded the War like a shell, tranforming its destruction to a promise of new life."Trilogy" is a quiet testament to her faith in writing as redemption, the poet as witness and priest. ... Read more

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from SEA GARDEN (1916) through TRILOGY (1944) ... Read more

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The Perfect Ship still missing ONE Mast!
The only way to improve upon this volume would be to include "Helen in Egypt" in the next edition. Then it would be truly complete, and truly perfect, fit to sail unto the unfix-ed Stars!

A Fantastic Collection
This book, bringing together all of H.D.'s poetry from her Imagist beginnings to her wartime "Trilogy," is a must have.For those who (like me) are novices with respect to modernist poetry, this presents a fantastic introduction.H.D.'s images have a richness and depth that I have not found elsewhere.Subject (poet as person) and object (metaphorical image) are so closely interwoven that one is instantly captivated by her presentations.This is particularly true of her use of Greek mythology - she resurrects ancient symbols in her own voice.Many of her images are simply breathtaking in their energy, depth, and beauty.This books is an essential read.

H.D.: The Essential Imagist
For lovers of modernist literature, this tome is a must. Including her first published book and covering the period until (and through) her astounding achievement in her war Trilogy, the Collected Poems allows areader to fully get to know H.D. in all her many moods. Also includingpoetry from the period in which she was undergoing psychoanalysis withFreud, the poems give a full picture of H.D.'s talent and life. H.D. is apoet to be read with all the other, better known modernists: T.S. Eliot,D.H. Lawrence, et. al. Her beautiful work ranges from her early imagistwork to her more visionary, mythic poem cycles contained in the final partof her Collected Poems, in Trilogy. Breathtaking. ... Read more

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"Surely the most delightful and precious appreciation of Freud's personality that is ever likely to be written. Only a fine creative artist could have written it.... It will live as the most enchanting ornament of all the Freudian biographical literature."—Ernest JonesBringing together “Writing on the Wall,” composed some ten years after H.D’s stay in Vienna, and “Advent,” a journal she kept at the time of her analysis there, Tribute to Freud offers a rare glimpse into the consulting room of the father of psychoanalysis. It may also be the most intimate of H.D.’s works.

Compelled by historical as well as personal crises, the poet worked with Freud during 1933-34. The streets of Vienna were littered with tokens dropped like confetti on the city, stating "Hitler gives work." "Hitler gives bread." Having endured World War I, she was now gathering her resources to face the second cataclysm she knew was approaching. In analysis, Hilda Doolittle explored her Pennsylvania childhood, her relationship with Ezra Pound (inventory of her nom de plume H.D.), Havelock Ellis, D.H. Lawrence, her ex-husband Richard Aldington, and subsequent companion Winifred Ellerman ("Bryher"), as well as her own creative processes.

Freud, regarding H.D. as a student as well as a patient, wads hardly the detached presence one might imagine. Revealed here in the poet's words and in his own letters, which comprise an appendix, is the considerate friend, the charming Viennese gentleman—art collector, dog lover, wit—and the pioneer, always revising his ideas and possessed of an insight that could be terrifying in its force. ... Read more

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The Professor & The Poet:Freud & H.D.
Tribute to Freud
by H. D.

It was arranged for H. D., stale, blocked & fearful of the impending disaster, remembering the horrors of WWI, to meet with Freud himself in Vienna (1933, 1934).The analysis was a success--her writing again became inspired.Her Tribute to the "Professor" portion, "Writing on the Wall", written in 1944 (she says) London, is an account of their interaction.The last diary-like dream-recording portion of her time with Freud, "Advent," was put together much later after WWII, while in Switzerland, when shereworked the earlier work & incorporated materials from her journals.

She tells him how her brother borrowed a magnifying glass from their father's forbidden desk.He showed little her how it could be used to burn some paper, and how the father only mildly reprimanded him, so unlike Prometheus' Father.

And of how once her brother got stubborn, and wouldn't come home with his mother who went around the corner and pretended to leave, and how little Hilda stayed with him, rather than following her mom.In analysis, she saw Freud as "mother," not reaching the desired Oedipal stage, according to the Professor.

And in a discussion on ambivalence, she slyly asks the Professor how the word "ambivalent" is pronounced, "ambi-valent?" or "am-bi-valent?".Freud, just as slyly, says he wishes someone would explain all that to him.

Being a student/analysand in his very chambers was a crowning "achievement" in her life of "spiral-like meanderings."As the poet thinks of this development she remembers The Chambered Nautilus in "life's unresting sea;" of how Freud had "brought me home" as was the weary wanderer in Poe's To Helen.

In one session Freud gave H. D. some oranges from a box he had received from his son, who had brought them from the south of France.Some of the oranges still had attached branches & leaves. She thanked him, perhaps with "how lovely," etc., but couldn't speak the singing thoughts the fruit brought back: about a song she sang in school, Kennst du das Land ...where die Gold-Orangen grow.(We find that the word paradise is derived from the Hebrew word for orange grove, pardes.)In Corfu with Bryher in1920, H. D. had three visions in her bedroom:perhaps of her brother, killed in the war, then a chalice, then a tripod of victory or "the tripod of classic Delphi", while outside their actual window were orange trees in "full leaf and fruit and flower."She thinks of Edenic green pastures, still waters, "fragrance of myrtle thickets ... and the groves of flowering citrons."She asks herself, "Kennst du das Land?" & replies,"Oh yes, Professor, I know it very well."

Ein sanfter Wind "Yes, It was dark & cold and there was the rumbling of war-chariots ... but upon the old Professor ... a soft wind blew ..." Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht? Still we have "the myrtle of Aphrodite and the laurel of Apollo..."And yes, "the myrtle ... did not flutter a leaf, and the laurel grew very tall there."Goethe's poem became rather a loom; her non-linear weaving & reweaving (like Penelope she says) became a tapestry of her concerns & Freud's responses.There is much more not touched on here.

Kennst du das Haus?Und Marmorbilder stehn ...
"You do know the house, don't you? ... It is there that we find the statues ... on the Professor's table.The statues stare and stare and seem to say, what has happened to you?"Mostly ancient Greek & Egyptian, Freud said that she was the first person who came to him & looked at his figurines & art collection before they looked at him!

Kennst du den Berg ...Going to see Freud, "The Porter said, `You know Bergasse?She "turned in at the" famous "entrance, Bergasse 19, Wein IX, it was."... und seinen Wolkenst? "Do you know the mountain and the cloud-bridge?""There is plenty of psychoanalytic building and constructing in this bridge.A suitable "translation of the Professor and our work together."

As the person's soul asks or implores, H. D. circles back through her thoughts & Goethe's poem, a lyrical round, picking up new comparisons, new energy, new import.She slowly & gently impresses us with her account. We go with her, with Goethe's soul, with Freud:o mein Geliebter,...o mein Beschützer Oh my beloved... "I want to go with you there, O my Guardian, O my Protector."

Of Freud
you sang enjoyed.
We hear your song,
loving, warm, not sang-froid.

Oh H.D.!
Poet, vestal, womanly,
forget you not shall we!

And we are reminded of these lines from one of her early poems, & her a Graecophile:

What are the islands to me,
what is Greece ...

What are the islands to me
if you are lost ... ?

(rev. 9.28.09) ... Read more

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The world is yet unspoiled for you, you wait, expectant-- you are like the children who haunt your own steps for chance bits--a comb that may have slipped, a gold tassle, unravelled. ... Read more

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The Gift
Very inspirational. H.D.'s search back through her childhood revealed an amazing journey through an imaginative world and how she saw life as she grew. This journey helped her survive bombings in England during the war. ... Read more

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A feminist, spiritual novel recasting biblical history in the tradition of Lawrence's The Man Who Died and Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ. Veronica--Pontius Pilate's wife--is beautiful, brilliant, and weary of a life spent in her boudoir and the Roman court. When one of her lovers sends her disguised as a servant to a seer, she feels suddenly alive, experiencing "sudden pre-visions of inner splendor." The seer, Mnevis, arouses the artist, the dreamer in her, eventually telling her of a Jew, a "love-god," who believes women have an important place in the spiritual hierarchy. What follows is a chain of events in which Veronica commits the one genuine act of her life, offering Jesus a "way out" before his crucifixion. This revision of biblical history--in the tradition of D. H. Lawrence's The Man Who Died and Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ--is not just a novel; but part of the ongoing dialogue about the feminine and divine. Pilate's Wife was written by H.D. in 1929, revised in 1934, and is now finally published by New Directions, edited with an introduction by H.D. scholar Joan Burke. It is a testament to Alicia Ostriker's claim that, among the women poets and novelists of this century, "H.D. is the most profoundly religious, the most seriously engaged in spiritual quest." ... Read more

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Disappointing to say the least
This novel was started in 1924, completed in 1929, revised in 1934 and rejected for publication by Houghton Mifflin. It was revised again in the 50's and eventually published - in defference to its historical important I presume.The novel is worthy of its rejection.It is similar to D. H. Lawrence's The Man Who Died in its presenting the death and resurrection of Jesus as a trick played with drugs - a denial of the miraculous in keeping with its era.Its feminism is based on an attempted renewal of classical religious images - Egyptian, Greek, Mithraic, ... - with a superficial presentation of these religions in a high didactic style and plot.Even fans of H.D. will be disappointed.Nonetheless, it does provide background for a greater appreciation of the environment in which it was written and of the development of H.D. thought.

Read it as literary history and it is useful; read it as novel and it leaves much to be desired. ... Read more

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Fast and quality
They delivered exactly what they described, a quality book in a short amount of time. Highly recommend.

A portrait of the artist...
...as a genius.There are a lot of threads to follow in this layered and evocative monster of a novel.Here are a couple to follow.To start with, there's the Shakespeare business.While it's true that this is a "fictionalized" autobiography, it's also clearly a response to themes in The Winter's Tale--think of Hermione "turned to stone," and of hardness of heart.Then there's the psychomachia.When H.D. touches on an idea, she often will elaborate it in action.Hermione thinks about her experiences and her mind as a space full of doors; immediately, we follow her through the doors within her family's house, as if exploring the collective mind of the family and of Hermione herself.There's more, of course."People make things and things make people."If that's true, then this "thing" called Hermione may change your view of things.The only weakness in the book to my mind is all that Freudian klapptrapp (see, by the way, Nabokov's Pale Fire or Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus.)Enjoy...

Female Writer Grows Up
For those who know her society of partners: Erza Pound, Aldington, DH Lawerence; this book begins with her relationship of the first. Amongst her eccentric family, and bisexual classmate, HD presents a poetic sketch ofher coming of age which is contrasted between her erratic hang-ups.Sometime sounding like Stein, other times Kerouac, Hilda plays with earthymetaphors which derives from her early years in the Imagist movement.Nevertheless, there was more to HD than being the Imagist's main figure;what went beyond is in this book.

Mad Genius
This book was written by Seattle poet Jesse Bernstein. It rules ... Read more

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A landmark book in the studies of Freud, H.D., modernism, gender, and sexuality. The poet H.D. (1886-1961) was in psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud in Vienna during the spring of 1933 and again in the fall of 1934. She visited him daily at his study at 19 Berggasse, while outside Nazi thugs and militia bullied their way through the streets. Freud was old, and fragile. H.D. was forty-six and despairing of her writing life, which seemed to have reached a dead end, for all her success. Her sessions with Freud proved to be the point of transition, the funnel into which were poured her memories of the past and associations in the present—and from which she emerged reborn. H.D. came to Freud at the urging of her companion, the novelist Bryher (1884-1983), the daughter of a wealthy British shipping magnate. Freud welcomed H.D. as a creative spirit whose work he respected, but he did ask her not to prepare for their sessions, write about them in her journal, or talk about them with her friends, especially Bryher, who remained home in England. H.D.'s letters from Vienna filled the gap. Breezy, informal, irreverent, vibrant with detail, they revolve around her hours with Freud, making her correspondence unique in the spectrum of reminiscences, journals, memoirs, and biographies swirling around the legacy of the "Professor" and the movement he founded. The volume includes H.D. and Bryher's letters, as well as letters by Freud to H.D. and Bryher, most of them published for the first time. In addition, the book includes H.D. and Bryher's letters to and from Havelock Ellis, Kenneth MacPherson, Robert McAlmon, Ezra Pound, and Anna Freud, among others. Fully annotated with Index and Photographs ... Read more

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Seminal addition to History Of Psychology reference shelves
Deftly compiled and edited by Susan Stanford Friedman (Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women's Studies and Chair of the English Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Analyzing Freud: Letters of H. D., Bryher, And their Circle is a fascinating, informative primary source providing invaluable insights into the life and work of the famous father of modern psychoanalysis -- Sigmund Freud. The poet H. D. was one of Freud's patients in 1933 and 1934; her letters to her novelist companion Bryher (which often revolve around the hours she spent with Freud), offer a unique glimpse into the inception of psychoanalysis, the modern-day science of the mind. Analyzing Freud is a very highly recommended, essential, seminal addition to History Of Psychology reference shelves and supplemental reading lists. ... Read more

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"Like every major artist she challenges the reader's intellect and imagination."—Boston HeraldSelected Poems, the first selection to encompass the rich diversity of Hilda Doolittle's poetry, is both confirmation and celebration of her long-overdue inclusion in the modernist canon. With both the general reader and the student in mind, editor Louis L. Martz of Yale University (who also edited H.D.'s Collected Poems 1912-1944) has provided generous examples of H.D.'s work. From her early "Imagist" period, through the "lost" poems of the thirties where H.D. discovered her unique creative voice, to the great prophetic poems of the war years combined in Trilogy, the selection triumphantly concludes with portions of the late sequences Helen in Egypt and Hermetic Definition which focus on rebirth, reconciliation, and the reunion of the divided self. ... Read more

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In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first volume, our wider scope making this possible.
... Read more

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HD's essays in poetics, with 'The Wise Sappho' ... Read more

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H.D. being H.D.
I have a love/hate relationship with H.D. - I lack her enthusiasm forGreek and Egyptian mythology (I'd rather move a bit further to theSoutheast) but I appreciate what she does with the mythology.Thus I amnever quite sure to what audience I can recommend her.

The second piecein this book, "The Wise Sappho" is a meditation on the poetry ofSappho - a poetic meditation.If you have read Sappho, this is a must readpiece as both Sappho and H.D. are talismen of the feminist strand ofpoets.

The first piece "Notes on Thought and Vision" needs tobe placed in time.H.D. speaks of her discovery of a higher level ofconsciousness, a level she refers to as jelly-fish mind as she imagines itas a jelly-fish above us (for brain consciousness) or beside us (for wombconsciousness) with tenacles into our body.Her examples come primarilyfrom art, Greek mythology or "the Galilean" (Jesus).Shespecifically includes scientists among those dependent upon this jelly-fishconsciousness.However, she cautions that body and mind are not to beneglected.Her description of her experience serves as an importantinsight into her poetry and prose and as one ray into understanding theliterary circle in which she roamed e.g. Ezra Pound.

Delicate, Not Brittle by Padma J. Thornlyre
At her best, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) is a poet. Her novels all display a poet's sense of immediacy, but are sometimes confusing for their interior "scapes" which are frequently all too fluid. Her poetry, however, directs the "flow" deliberately and masterfully. "Notes on Thought and Vision" is a rare example (like Nikos Kazantzakis's "The Saviors of God") wherein the distinction between poetry and prose evaporates. These "Notes" are intimate and compelling, watery and feminine, mystical and yet (strangely) earthy--composed of octopus, seaweed, and salt. Her language is delicate, but not brittle, her point of view keenly sensitive but never timid. "Notes" is an intelligent reflection on the sub- or un-conscious, and on the source(s) of poetic inspiration, from the only person, male or female, who ever wrote openly of her experience as Sigmund Freud's patient (see H.D.'s "Tribute to Freud"). "Notes on Thought and Vision" is a short book (and a small one), which contains a very large message that celebrates the feminine and the divine as one and the same. A must-read for any woman who seeks to explore her creativity and for any man who seeks his own "anima". ... Read more

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Sea Garden is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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Living with her mother in Switzerland during the time of World War II, Madge moves from the concerns of childhood to the edge of the more adult woes of love and loss, separation and community. ... Read more

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H.D.: The Long Journey to Freedom
The poet H.D. [Hilda Doolittle] was born in Bethlehem, PA to an academic family.Her father, Charles Doolittle, was a Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy."Everything revolved around him," Hilda wrote many years later.He was stern, patriarch, and hard to impress.

At Bryn Mawr College, she met Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.Under Pound's tutelage, she began writing poetry.He gave her the moniker "H.D.," and they became engaged.On an August day in a museum tearoom, Pound both gave her a pen name and determined that she should be a published poet. When she left school two years later under something of a cloud, it was Ezra Pound who introduced her to his literary circle, the Imagists, in London.There she met her future husband, Richard Aldinton, after the Pound relationship wore off. Naturally, she wrote Imagist poetry and submitted much of her work to the harsh review of her mentor, the patriarchal Mr. Pound.She later had a remarkable friendship with D. H. Lawrence and then Cecil Gray, the future father of her daughter.Before the First World War, she emerged as a young woman firmly under the wing of various men. They ultimately had the effect of both promoting and marginalizing her talents.

The war to end wars changed a great deal.In many ways, the pre-war Imagists were poets who reflected in words the aesthetic values of Impressionist painters. They created objectified poetry, based on images of life, both inanimate and human.After the war, the same group of poets [Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens] gradually came to be known as Modernists as they absorbed the harsh realities of the War.

In so far as H.D. was an Imagist, she pursued clarity through precise visual images. As she emerged a Modernist, she discovered the need to write about what Rafael Campos has called "human relationships contextualized in their starkly new and sometimes alienating surroundings."

Here, H.D. found her voice in the experiences of classical females, like Helen. In Homer's version of the Trojan Wars only the male version of the story is told. In H.D.'s Helen in Egypt, the silent heroine speaks for herself.In Helen, it is H.D. who finds a feminist voice with which to speak to the world.

As she gained an independent voice, she started to find other women who were fighting a similar fight. H. D.'s personal relationships with women varied a great deal.She was an early friend of Marianne Moore, who encouraged her.After so many disastrous relationships with men, she took up an openly lesbian relationship with the poet, novelist, and critic Annie Winifred Ellerman, who published under the name Bryher.Together they traveled around Europe through the twenties, writing poetry and generally acting out the lives of wild women of the flapper era.

In 1933-34, H.D. moved to Vienna and studied under Sigmund Freud. She became one of the few cases where he psychoanalyzed one of his students, after which her poetry became even more openly feminist in tone. As she worked with Freud, she kept notes which were later published as Advent.Ten years later, she published a slightly fictionalized version of her psychoanalysis by Freud entitled Writing on the Wall. Today, the two manuscripts have been re-issued by New Directions under the title Tribute to Freud and a fascinating read it is.Dedicating your life to the service of others isn't always the best way to serve the development of your own special talents.

H.D. wrote long before the idea of genuine human equality between the sexes could be openly contemplated.So, her poetry was largely ignored. H.D. spent most of her life trying to free herself.

How to Describe...?
How to describe this book? Doolittle's dexterity with our language, her soft langurous voice, the layers upon layers of depth underlying each of the stanzas? It is impossible. Having read the Greek lyrics and tragedians, and that other beacon, Shakespeare, I am still at a loss to do justice to Doolittle's "Helen in Egypt." I can only tell you one thing: read it. But if you do, do it slowly, with care and attention to each of the lines, with long pauses to allow them to sink in, and let yourself be seduced by Helen, Helena, the phantom that, real or not, launched a thousand ships, and languishes between a triumvirate of men, gods, and heroes: Zeus and Amen, Achilles and Paris and Theseus, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra... ... Read more

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With Unpublished Letters By Freud To The Author. ... Read more

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It was easy enough to bend them to my wish, it was easy enough to alter them with a touch, but you adrift on the great sea, how shall I call you back? ... Read more