- Byname of:
- Hilda Doolittle
- Born:
- September 10, 1886, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- Died:
- September 27, 1961, Zürich, Switzerland (aged 75)
- Notable Works:
- “Bid Me to Live”
- Movement / Style:
- Imagists
H.D.
-
Who was H.D.?
Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961), known as H.D., was an American poet celebrated as a key figure in the Imagist movement. Her poetry, initially characterized by a sharp, classical style, evolved to include rich mythological and mystical themes. Beyond poetry, H.D. was a translator, novelist, playwright, and self-proclaimed "pagan mystic." Her notable works include Sea Garden (1916), Hymen (1921), and the trilogy The Walls Do Not Fall (1944), Tribute to the Angels (1945), and Flowering of the Rod (1946).
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What kind of writing is H.D. most famous for?
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) was an American poet, translator, novelist, playwright, and self-proclaimed "pagan mystic". She is most famous for her role as one of the early Imagist poets. This Modernist literary movement centered on a group of American and English poets whose poetic manifesto was formulated about 1912 by Ezra Pound, H.D., Richard Aldington, and F.S. Flint. H.D.’s first volume of verse, Sea Garden (1916), established her as an important voice among the radical young Imagist poets.
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What does the 'H.D.' in her name stand for?
H.D., born Hilda Doolittle on September 10, 1886, was an American poet known as an Imagist American poet. Her first published poems, sent to Poetry magazine by Ezra 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, to whom she was married from 1913 to 1938 American poet.
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What is Imagism, and how was H.D. involved with it?
Imagism was a Modernist literary movement that began around 1912 with American and English poets, including H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, and F.S. Flint. Imagists wrote clear, succinct verse and used precise language to create exact visual images that expressed a complete poetic statement. The movement valued directness and eschewed superfluous words.
H.D. was a central figure in Imagism and is sometimes considered its foremost member. Her early work, appearing in collections such as Sea Garden (1916), exemplified the movement's principles. Throughout her career, H.D.'s style evolved, incorporating mythological and mystical themes while maintaining the sharp, spare quality characteristic of Imagism.
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What themes and topics often appear in H.D.'s poetry?
Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was an American poet known as an Imagist, translator, novelist-playwright, and self-proclaimed "pagan mystic". Her poetry evolved from a sharp, spare, classical style to incorporate rich mythological and mystic overtones.
H.D. explored themes of the interior journey and the woman’s role as an artist. She used myth to illuminate personal experience and reconstruct a mythic past for women. Her work goes beyond Imagism and helped define free verse and stream-of-consciousness narrative.
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How did H.D. influence modern poetry and other writers?
H.D., initially known as an Imagist poet, significantly influenced modern poetry and other writers through her sharp, spare, and classical style. As a central figure in the Imagist movement, she helped define free verse and pioneered stream-of-consciousness narratives.
Her work emphasized direct and sparse language, with a focus on exact visual images, impacting poets like Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot, who were influenced by Imagism. Ezra Pound and other 20th-century poets also acknowledged their artistic debt to her.
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
H.D. (born September 10, 1886, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died September 27, 1961, Zürich, Switzerland) was an American poet, known initially as an Imagist. She was also a translator, novelist-playwright, and self-proclaimed “pagan mystic.”
Hilda Doolittle’s father was an astronomer, and her mother was a pianist. She was reared in the strict Moravian 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, 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, a fellow student, and with Ezra Pound (to whom she was briefly engaged) and William Carlos Williams, 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, to whom she was married from 1913 to 1938. She 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, 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.