Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Ezra Pound
-
Standard Name: Pound, Ezra
EP
, American poet, critic, editor, translator, and key figure in the literary modernist movement, lived in London from 1908 to 1921, in Paris from 1921 to 1924, and then in Italy until the end of the Second World War. His vociferous, antisemitic support for Italian fascism earned him thirteen years in a US hospital for the criminally insane. He worked from 1917 until near the end of his life on his massive and generically multiple epic poem Cantos, which he published in serial fragments.
The Golden Bough, a comparative study of human beliefs from the earliest times, had a major influence on modernist writings. SJGF
's text outlines an evolving belief system, which moves from magic, to religion...
politics
H. D.
H. D.
, a staunch anti-fascist, broke off contact with her long-time friend Ezra Pound
. Barbara Guest
, however, reads her as responding to personal behaviour rather than to Pound's support for fascism and anti-semitism.
Guest, Barbara. Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World. Collins.
247-9
Robinson, Janice S. H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet. Houghton Mifflin.
304
Education
H. D.
HD withdrew from Bryn Mawr for health reasons after suffering an emotional breakdown. Other factors too may have played a part: she was in the midst of a turbulent relationship with Ezra Pound
and she...
Instructor
H. D.
Following her withdrawal from Bryn Mawr, HD (with Pound
's assistance) embarked on an intensive independent study programme that lasted for five years. During this period she read and studied writers such as William Morris
Friends, Associates
H. D.
In addition to Pound
and her classmate Marianne Moore
, HD's friends from her teenage years in Pennsylvania included another poet, William Carlos Williams
.
Robinson, Janice S. H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet. Houghton Mifflin.
10
Travel
H. D.
HD made two trips through France and Italy before 1913 with Richard Aldington
, whom she later married. Ezra Pound
went with them on one of these occasions.
Friends, Associates
H. D.
After her move to England, Ezra Pound
introduced HD to his circle of friends, many of whom were important figures in the modernist movement. They included W. B. Yeats
, T. S. Eliot
,...
Friends, Associates
H. D.
HD's estrangement from Pound
continued for years after the end of the Second World War. Then, despite the disapproval of friends such as Bryher
and Sylvia Beach
, she renewed contact with him in 1960...
Health
H. D.
HD was referred to Freud by her previous therapist, Hanns Sachs
. Before agreeing to take her on as a patient and student, Freud read her writings, as well as those of D. H. Lawrence
Cultural formation
H. D.
HD's interest in spiritualism is perhaps traceable to her Moravian background as well as to the yogi books given to her by Ezra Pound
when she was a teenager. During the Second World War she...
Textual Production
H. D.
In autumn 1912 Hilda Doolittle
and her new friend Richard Aldington
together showed Ezra Pound
some of their collaborative translations from the Greek Anthology.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Literary responses
H. D.
Pound
was particularly impressed with HD's work in 1912. He dubbed her on the spot with her own initials as a nom de plume, identified her as the Imagist figurehead, and set out to get...
Literary responses
H. D.
Ezra Pound
dismissed HD's comment on Moore by saying that she could not write criticism. His own critique of Moore came two years later, and is often mentioned as if it had been the earliest...
Literary responses
H. D.
HD's prose fictions met with less critical success than the poetry which she had published hitherto. Their word-play, symbolic structures, and manipulation of myth were seen as arbitrary, as distractions from rather than as elements...
Textual Features
H. D.
This is war poetry which looks at the home front, like T. S. Eliot
's Four Quartets and Ezra Pound
's Pisan Cantos. It has been classified as epic.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. “’Remembering Shakespeare Always, But Remembering Him Differently’: H.D.’s By Avon River”. Sagetrieb, Vol.
