Doolittle, Hilda

Doolittle, Hilda
known as H.D.

born Sept. 10, 1886, Bethlehem, Pa., U.S.
died Sept. 27, 1961, Zürich, Switz.

U.S. poet.

Doolittle went to Europe in 1911 and remained there the rest of her life. One of the first Imagists (see Imagism) and deeply influenced by Ezra Pound, she wrote clear, impersonal, sensuous verse that combined classical themes with modernist techniques. Her later work was looser and more passionate, though it remained erudite and symbolic. Her collections include Sea Garden (1916), Hymen (1921), and Red Roses for Bronze (1929). She was also acclaimed for her translations, verse drama, and prose works.

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▪ American poet
byname  H.D. 
born September 10, 1886, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.
died September 27, 1961, Zürich, Switzerland

      American poet, known initially as an Imagist. She was also a translator, novelist-playwright, and self-proclaimed “pagan mystic.”

      Doolittle's father was an astronomer, and her mother was a pianist. She was reared in the strict Moravian (Moravian church) tradition of her mother's family. From her parents she gained, on her father's side, an intellectual inheritance, and, on her mother's, an artistic and mystical one. (The Moravians, descended in part from the German Pietists (Pietism), stressed spirituality and belief in God's grace.) She entered Bryn Mawr College in 1904 and, while a student there, formed friendships with Marianne Moore (Moore, Marianne), a fellow student, and with Ezra Pound (Pound, Ezra) (to whom she was briefly engaged) and William Carlos Williams (Williams, William Carlos), who were at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. Ill health forced her to leave college in 1906. Five years later she traveled to Europe for what was to have been a vacation but became a permanent stay, mainly in England and Switzerland. Her first published poems, sent to Poetry magazine by Pound, appeared under the initials H.D., which remained thereafter her nom de plume. Other poems appeared in Pound's anthology Des Imagistes (1914) and in the London journal The Egoist, edited by Richard Aldington (Aldington, Richard), to whom she was married from 1913 to 1938. Doolittle was closely associated for much of her adult life with the British novelist Bryher.

      H.D.'s first volume of verse, Sea Garden (1916), established her as an important voice among the radical young Imagist poets. Her subsequent volumes included Hymen (1921), Heliodora and Other Poems (1924), Red Roses for Bronze (1931), and a trilogy comprising The Walls Do Not Fall (1944), Tribute to the Angels (1945), and Flowering of the Rod (1946).

      The Collected Poems of H.D. (1925 and 1940), Selected Poems of H.D. (1957), and Collected Poems 1912–1944 (1983) secured her position as a major 20th-century poet. She won additional acclaim for her translations (Choruses from the Iphigeneia in Aulis and the Hippolytus of Euripides [1919] and Euripides' Ion [1937]), for her verse drama (Hippolytus Temporizes [1927]), and for prose works such as Palimpsest (1926), Hedylus (1928), and, posthumously, The Gift (1982). Several of her books are autobiographical—including Tribute to Freud (1956); Bid Me to Live (1960); and the posthumously published End to Torment (1979), a memoir of Pound, and Hermione (1981), a semiautobiographical bildungsroman, or perhaps more accurately a Künstlerroman (portrait of the artist's development). Helen in Egypt (1961), a volume of verse, appeared shortly after her death.

      Over the years H.D.'s sharp, spare, classical, and rather passionless style took on rich mythological and mystic overtones. Analyzed by Sigmund Freud, she was preoccupied with the interior journey. She was directly concerned with the woman's role as artist, and she used myth not only to illuminate individual, personal experience but also, it has been pointed out, to reconstruct a mythic past for women. H.D. is sometimes considered first among the Imagists (Imagist), the seminal 20th-century poetic movement in the United States, though her work goes far beyond Imagism. She also helped define what came to be called free verse and was among the early users of a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Ezra Pound and other important 20th-century poets considered themselves artistically indebted to her.

Additional Reading
Barbara Guest, Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World (1984), is an authorized biography. Janice S. Robinson, H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet (1982), concentrates more on literary analysis. Additional criticism includes Harold Bloom (ed.), H.D. (1989, reissued 2002); Susan Stanford Friedman and Rachel Blau DuPlessis (eds.), Signets: Reading H.D. (1990); Susan Stanford Friedman, Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, H.D.'s Fiction (1990); Dianne Chisholm, H.D.'s Freudian Poetics: Psychoanalysis in Translation (1992); and Diana Collecott, H.D. and Sapphic Modernism, 1910–1950 (1999).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Doolittle, Hilda — llamada H.D. (10 sep. 1886, Bethlehem, Pa., EE.UU.–27 sep. 1961, Zurich, Suiza). Poetisa estadounidense. Doolittle viajó a Europa en 1911 y permaneció allí por el resto de su vida. Fue una de las primeras autoras imaginistas (ver imaginismo). En… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Doolittle,Hilda — Doo·lit·tle (do͞oʹlĭt l), Hilda. Pen name H.D. 1886 1961. American poet whose imagist verse was published in works such as Sea Garden (1916) and Helen in Egypt (1961). * * * …   Universalium

  • Hilda Doolittle — Hilda Doolittle, bekannter unter ihren Initialen H. D. (* 10. September 1886 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; † 27. September 1961 in Zürich, Schweiz) war eine US amerikanische Schriftstellerin. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Leben 2 Werk …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Hilda Doolittle — [Hilda Doolittle] (1886–1961) a US ↑poet who also wrote plays, novels and children’s stories. She usually wrote as ‘H D’. From 1911 to 1937 she lived in Europe, where she was influenced by Ezra Pound and married the poet Richard Aldington in 1913 …   Useful english dictionary

  • Doolittle — se refiere a: ● Charles Doolittle Walcott, paleontólogo ● James H. Doolittle, militar estadounidense durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial ● «Doolittle», álbum del grupo musical Pixies ● Dr. Doolittle 2, película cómica protagonizada por Eddie Murphy …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Doolittle — /dooh lit l/, n. 1. Hilda ( H.D. ), 1886 1961, U.S. poet. 2. James Harold, born 1896, U.S. aviator and general. * * * (as used in expressions) Doolittle Hilda Doolittle Jimmy James Harold Doolittle * * * …   Universalium

  • Doolittle — may refer to: Doolittle (album), a 1989 album by Pixies Doolittle, Missouri, a town in Missouri, United States People with the surname Amos Doolittle (1754 1832), American engraver and silversmith Bev Doolittle, American painter Charles Doolittle …   Wikipedia

  • Doolittle — ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Charles Camp Doolittle (1832–1903), US amerikanischer General Dudley Doolittle (1881–1957), US amerikanischer Politiker Eliza Doolittle (* 1988), britische Singer Songwriterin Ford Doolittle (* 1942), US… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Doolittle —   [ duːlɪtl], Hilda, bekannt als H. Doolittle [ eɪtʃ diː], amerikanische Schriftstellerin, * Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) 10. 9. 1886, ✝ Zürich 27. 9. 1961; 1913 37 Ȋ mit dem englischen Schriftsteller R. Aldington. Ihre Gedichte, die sich durch… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Hilda Doolittle — ➡ Doolittle (II) * * * …   Universalium

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