Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
H. D.
-
Standard Name: H. D.
Used Form: Hilda Doolittle
Birth Name: Hilda Doolittle
Married Name: Hilda Aldington
Self-constructed Name: H. D.
Pseudonym: John Helforth
Pseudonym: Edith Gray
Pseudonym: Helga Dorn
Pseudonym: J. Beran
Pseudonym: Rhoda Peter
Pseudonym: Helga Dart
Pseudonym: Delia Alton
Nickname: Dryad
Nickname: Dooley
Nickname: Astraea
HD, born American, who took British nationality after a marriage which lasted longer on paper than in practice, was a key figure in the international Imagist movement of the early twentieth century and in modernism more broadly: both through her own poetry and through her editing and dissemination of the work of others. As well as her imagistic pieces, she wrote complex longer poems (most published during her lifetime), translation, essays, reviews, outlines for films, and autobiographical novels which are, like most of her work, explorations of the self. Here she writes à clef of her own past, but also builds a web of mythical and psycho-analytical reference which makes her texts dense as well as rewarding. She is an explorer of the female psyche, and of the relation of gender to creativity and of myth to psychoanalysis.
Bryher
and H. D.
holidayed on the Isles of Scilly off Cornwall, where each came to a significant understanding about her respective writing.
Quartermain, Peter, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 45. Gale Research.
128
Occupation
Bryher
In July 1927 Bryher and Macpherson
founded Close Up magazine, dedicated to avant-garde film theories and practices.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910-1940. Women’s Press.
276
Both as editor and contributor, Bryher used Close Up as a forum to develop and share her...
Friends, Associates
Bryher
Bryher
and sexologist Havelock Ellis
began a twenty-year association. This was encouraged by H. D.
, who knew of their mutual interest in depictions of cross-dressing women in Elizabethan drama.
Collecott, Diana. H.D. and Sapphic Modernism, 1910-1950. Cambridge University Press, http://Rutherford HSS.
67 and n68
Bryher,. The Heart to Artemis: A Writer’s Memoirs. Collins.
Aldington, Richard, and H. D. “Introduction and Commentary”. Richard Aldington and H.D.: The Later Years in Letters, edited by Caroline Zilboorg, Manchester University Press, pp. 1 - 14; various pages.
2: 18
Friends, Associates
Bryher
The same year Bryher provided emotional and financial support for H. D.
when the latter suffered a breakdown and entered a Swiss clinic.
Quartermain, Peter, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 45. Gale Research.
138
After this, though their lives remained closely linked, Bryher lived largely alone.
Residence
Bryher
Inspired by the Bauhaus aesthetic of Berlin, Bryher
built Kenwin, her home near Montreux in the Vaud canton, Switzerland. She shared it for a time with Kenneth Macpherson
, H. D.
, and H. D.'s daughter Perdita
.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910-1940. Women’s Press.
44
Bryher,. The Heart to Artemis: A Writer’s Memoirs. Collins.
259
Literary responses
Bryher
After reading the highly enthusiastic pamphlet, Lowell sent an appreciative message to Bryher, but expressed some (ultimately unfounded) concern about it in another letter to H. D.
: the girl has insight and a good...
Friends, Associates
Bryher
Travelling from Switzerland, Bryher
arrived at 49 Lowndes Square, London , the home of her companion H. D.
The two lived there through the rest of the Second World War.
Bryher,. The Days of Mars. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
3
Textual Production
Bryher
Bryher also wrote publicly on H. D.
's work. After H. D.'s 1921 collection Hymen was pronounced deadening and monotonous
Collecott, Diana. H.D. and Sapphic Modernism, 1910-1950. Cambridge University Press, http://Rutherford HSS.
36
by the Times Literary Supplement, Bryher (who had helped publish the volume) praised...
Cultural formation
Bryher
From an early age, she fostered relationships with such innovative contemporaries as H. D.
, Dorothy Richardson
, Sylvia Beach
, and Marianne Moore
. In her life writings, Bryher places most importance on her...
Literary responses
Bryher
In an Egoist review, Richard Aldington
praised Bryher for following the literary-literal principles recently established by the Poets' Translation Series, which he and H. D.
were running at the Egoist Press
, and which...
Friends, Associates
Bryher
The women critiqued and promoted each other's work, and in 1918 Lowell introduced Bryher to H. D.
's poetry.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910-1940. Women’s Press.
35-6, 219
Marek, Jayne E. Women Editing Modernism: "Little" Magazines & Literary History. University Press of Kentucky.
116
Material Conditions of Writing
Bryher
When Bryher and her companion H. D.
travelled to Greece in the spring of 1920, the trip profoundly affected the personal and professional outlook of each; these poems were part of the result.
Bryher,. The Heart to Artemis: A Writer’s Memoirs. Collins.
191
Quartermain, Peter, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 45. Gale Research.
128
Friends, Associates
Bryher
Bryher read and was highly enthusiastic about Marianne Moore
's poetry, which H. D.
had recommended to her. In 1921, following their meeting in the United States, Bryher arranged and paid for the publication...
