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.
In her first memoir, Bryher includes an evocative account of the meeting: [t]he door opened and I started in surprise. I had seen the face before, on a Greek statue or in some indefinable territory...
Intertextuality and Influence
Bryher
This text was inspired by the author's continued attachment to H. D.
, as well as her long-wished-for trip to the United States, which she took with H. D. and the latter's daughter, Perdita
Family and Intimate relationships
Bryher
During most of the intervening years, they worked, travelled, and lived together, sharing such intimate tasks as the raising of H. D.
's daughter Perdita
, who referred to them as my two mothers...
Marek, Jayne E. Women Editing Modernism: "Little" Magazines & Literary History. University Press of Kentucky.
118-20
Travel
Bryher
In the spring of 1920, Bryher and H. D.
began an extended holiday in Greece and Crete. They were accompanied by sexologist Havelock Ellis
, with whom they had first associated in 1918.
Collecott, Diana. H.D. and Sapphic Modernism, 1910-1950. Cambridge University Press, http://Rutherford HSS.
67, 186, 283
Performance of text
Bryher
The POOL
collective produced four silent films, the best-known and most ambitious of which is Borderline (1930). Presenting a seemingly disjointed, obscure mix of racial and sexual conflicts, Borderline shows the influences of Pabst
,...
Travel
Bryher
In September 1920, Bryher's desire to meet American poets and see the liberating New World took her, H. D.
, and H. D.'s daughter
to the United States. Bryher met H. D.'s associate Marianne Moore
Textual Production
Bryher
Desmond MacCarthy
had launched Life and Letters in June 1928; it issued its last number this month, and Bryher's new publication first appeared in September. It merged it with the London Mercury after May 1939...
Family and Intimate relationships
Bryher
Following Amy Lowell
's suggestion, Bryher
read and was profoundly impressed by H. D.
's poetry collection Sea Garden, 1916. In July, Bryher wrote H. D. an appreciative letter that prompted their first meeting.
Bryher,. The Heart to Artemis: A Writer’s Memoirs. Collins.
187-8
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910-1940. Women’s Press.
35
Cultural formation
Bryher
Bryher writes that besides cross-dressing, other favourite topics of discussion between herself and Ellis included birth control, which she argued was far more important to women than votes.
Bryher,. The Heart to Artemis: A Writer’s Memoirs. Collins.
197
By this time she had read...
Residence
Bryher
Bryher
and H. D.
, along with H. D.'s daughter Perdita
, took the Riant Chateau, a pension in Territet, Switzerland, as their primary residence.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910-1940. Women’s Press.
41
Robinson, Janice S. H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet. Houghton Mifflin.
265
Family and Intimate relationships
Bryher
At the start of their platonic marriage, Macpherson
lived with Bryher, H. D.
, and H. D.'s daughter Perdita
, at Territet. H. D. and Macpherson had been lovers since 1926.
Quartermain, Peter, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 45. Gale Research.
132
Perdita Schaffner...
Travel
Bryher
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
Phyllis Bottome
When PB
and Lislie
spent the winter in Rome, Ezra Pound
introduced Bottome to H. D.
.
Bottome, Phyllis. The Challenge. Harcourt, Brace and Company.
