Talk:H.D.

Rewrite

This was the text before I started a rewrite Filiocht:

Alternate uses, see H.D. (disambiguation)

Hilda Doolittle, better known by the pen name H.D. (September 10, 1886 - September 27, 1961) was a United States Imagist poet and novelist. She was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

During H.D.'s adolescence in Pennsylvania, she befriended Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound. She enrolled at Bryn Mawr, but dropped out in 1911 and moved to England. In 1913, she married poet Richard Aldington, and in January of that year, three of her poems, "Hermes of the Ways," "Orchard," and "Epigram," were published in the journal Poetry.

In 1918, H.D. met Bryher, who would become and remain her companion and lover, despite H.D.'s marriage to Aldington and Bryher's marriages to Robert McAlmon and Kenneth Macpherson.

In 1933 and 1934, she was pupil and analysand of Sigmund Freud. H.D. later published a fictionalized account of this experience in Tribute to Freud.

After World War II, H.D. broke with Imagism, and her poetry began to reflect her interest in spiritualism, mysticism, ancient Greece, Egyptology, and astrology. These influences are particularly present in Trilogy.

Works

• "Trilogy"
• "HERmione"
• "Helen in Egypt"
• The Gift
• Bid Me to Live

References

• Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World by Barbara Guest ISBN 0385131291

External links

• http://www.imagists.org/hd/

Marriage of convenience

Just one question: In 1921, Bryher contracted a marriage of convenience with Robert McAlmon which enabled him to fund his publishing ventures in Paris. What does this mean? How? Markalexander100 02:03, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Acronyms

I thought there was a policy at Wikipedia to never list articles under acronyms, and I would think that this would apply especially to an actual person with a real name (others, like NASA etc are more understandable)... surely most people would look her up with her real name, not H. D. (and obviously she would be linked from the disambiguation page as well)... Houshuang 21:01, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

She's almost universally referred to as "H.D." rather than by her full name. I think the policy is that we title articles by the name most commonly used, which would override the no-acronym thing. --Tothebarricades.tk 01:41, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ambiguous sentence

This sentence is unclear in meaning:

" Around this time, Doolittle entered into a relationship with a young art student named Frances Josepha Gregg. After spending part of 1910 living in New York City's Greenwich Village, she sailed to Europe with Gregg and her mother in 1911."

Was H.D. travelling with her own mother or with Gregg's?

If the former, the sentence would read better as

" Around this time, Doolittle entered into a relationship with a young art student named Frances Josepha Gregg. After spending part of 1910 living in New York City's Greenwich Village, she sailed to Europe with her mother and with Gregg."

If the latter, consider,

" Around this time, Doolittle entered into a relationship with a young art student named Frances Josepha Gregg. After spending part of 1910 living in New York City's Greenwich Village, she sailed to Europe with Gregg and with Gregg's mother, [Gregg's mother's name] in 1911.

I'll look for a bio with a clearer reference, but if anyone knows the answer feel free to change it.

It was Gregg's mother: [1]. Mark¹ 08:05, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Frances Gregg's Gender

A recent addition to this article identified Frances Gregg as a man and stated that both H.D. and Ezra Pound were romantically involved with Frances. I found this puzzling as while H.D.'s bisexuality is well documented I had never heard of Pound ever becoming sexually involved with a man. A google search and a look at "The Life of Ezra Pound" by Noel Stock soon made it clear that Frances Scott was a woman. I know the male version of Frances is usually spelled FrancIs, but I assumed Gregg was merely going by an unconventional spelling.

This same mistake appeared in the article about Pound and has been corrected.

Devil Doll 20:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed Reference to Three Way Sex

I removed a reference to three way sexual encounters between H.D., Bryher and MacPherson as I cannot find any reliable verification. (The same poster who included this material also wrote about Ezra Pound's threeway encounters with women in the Pound article, material that was quickly removed by another contributor). If someone can come up with some verification about these alleged encounters, I'll consider myself corrected.

Devil Doll 20:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

High school

I am trying to update high school affiliations for Lehigh Valley people. Does anyone know where she went to high school? PAWiki 19:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Page move

In my openion, this article is about Hilda Doolittle the person, not H.D. the pseudonym. I'd like to page move; thoughts? Ceoil 16:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe that the exchange in the Acronyms section explains how searching for "Hilda Doolittle" or "H.D." will bring you to this article with no disambiguation. I can understand the argument that "H.D." in ways refers to a different person given her different approach to poetry during the birth of that pseudonym, but ultimately H.D. and Hilda Doolittle are the same entity. Enderandpeter (talk) 18:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

yes, she is known as H.D. books of poetry were published under this "name".Mercurywoodrose (talk) 23:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Rockin' Intro

Kudos to whoever wrote the intro paragraph to this article, for noting her breakaway from both the Imagist movement and Pound's influence. The first hit in searching for "hilda doolittle" on Google brings up a page on the site imagists.org, and I fear that could be misleading. Again, superb work. Enderandpeter (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Sappho

I've changed "the recently rediscovered works of Sappho" to just "Sappho." So far as I know, the Sappho H.D. would have read would have been the standard works that had long been in all the commonly available Greek texts; I can't see any way in which they were "rediscovered" in H.D.'s time (additional verses from papyri I think came mostly after H.D.) If anyone wants to keep the "rediscovered," please explain it in the text -- for instance, it could be argued that the existing works were "newly influential," though this would need references Strawberryjampot (talk) 23:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Ezra Pound

I've changed the first reference to Ezra Pound from "the leading British Modernist poet Ezra Pound" to just "Ezra Pound," because 1) he's American and 2) surely he's too well known to need description (like Freud, later in the same paragraph, who is not described as "the prominent Viennese psychoanalyst.") Strawberryjampot (talk) 15:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thats fine, and better. I added the superative to emphasise the importance of Pound's role only. Ceoil (talk) 20:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

copyright vio on poem Oread?

is this still under copyright protection? she died in 1961, so arent all her works copyrighted for, i think, 80 years after her death? or am i totally off base on this?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 23:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

American copyright laws are different and have changed over time. Anything first published in the U.S. before 1923 is in the public domain. Yworo (talk) 02:47, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Straw poll re inclusion of Infobox

Let's gauge current consensus of who supports or opposes inclusion of an Infobox. Yworo (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Poll responses

• Support - Infoboxes are useful and are encouraged on all biographies. Yworo (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Poll discussion

We all get our kicks in differnt ways. Some are born with the desire to reduce difficult, complex people to one or two word 'sound bites'. Go Yworo, stalker and reductivist. Ceoil (talk) 23:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. Yworo (talk) 23:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Try and earn that right rather than gaming it. Ceoil (talk) 23:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

:I left this message for Modernist, and yeah, I admitted I wanted to take down the infobox. Now Yworo has hit each of the articles I've mentioned in my post. Yworo, please explain your reasoning, backed by a strong argument, and include exactly what should be done about subjective data in infoboxes for poets. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There shouldn't be subjective data. Anything in the infobox should already be somewhere in the article and cited, so not subjective. I'm not a big fan of the influenced and influenced by items myself, but if they are limited to what's supported in the article they are not too bad. Yworo (talk) 00:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Try tending one of these articles for six months, a year, four years, and then repeat what you've written above. It's subjective when people add indiscriminately to fields available in the infobox. Somebody has to tend those fields, which is a pain. Writing about poets, poetry, and literature in general is a bit different than other disciplines. Add in the modernist aspect - and really it's just best to avoid the infobox. You're mad because I posted on Modernist's page. What you don't understand is that I've been slogging through the world of modernism for most the summer, have a lot of these pages watched, and yesterday, really thought we needed a nav template. That was the gist of my post to Modernist - in addition, of course, that I don't think they should have infoboxes. You've taken that and run with it. Unfortunately this is one one of the few hours a day when I have the opportunity to actually work on an encyclopedia article, and tonight that time is being used for this unnecessary discussion. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The same problems happen, with or without an infobox. Yworo (talk) 00:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the argument? I'm going to try to get some work done. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia changes. Infoboxes are now the style. If you'd stop opposing inevitable progress, you could go right on editing rather than arguing. Yworo (talk) 00:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes are not a style, nor are they mandatory. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Consensus for their inclusion is increasing. It's only a matter of time. If not now, next year. Yworo (talk) 01:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This is circular; the concencus you mention is only increasing becasue of your noise. Your matter of time argument just shows how you are evangelical, not thinking. Ceoil (talk) 03:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Still can't spell consensus, eh? Yworo (talk) 03:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Spelling mistakes are understandable - considering that all that he's saying is exactly right on...Modernist (talk) 03:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course, you and he are both welcome to assume what you will. Doesn't make it right. Yawn. Yworo (talk) 03:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This needs to stop. It's unnecessarily disruptive. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it has stopped. Yworo's arguments are not very sophisticated, and only go as far as ILIKEIT. After that its insults. So here we are. Ceoil (talk) 09:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

See WP:DISRUPT; why is this poll occurring on multiple talk pages? I believe it would be more efficient to put the category up for deletion, as it's a disruptive category anyway-- there is no requirement for infoboxes, hence no reason for that template to exist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:16, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe because of a comment I made to Modernist about infoboxes on his talkpage yesterday [2] without realizing it would cause such disruption. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't you - he chose to do these things all on his own...Modernist (talk) 13:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It would have happened anyway, sooner or later. Better it was a high profile blast and ended quickly. Ceoil (talk) 13:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'd better assume that you all actually responded Oppose to the poll? Or is the opposition actually weaker on this article? Yworo (talk) 02:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I oppose to an infobox on this article as to the others that I listed. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

@Yworo, sorry guy, the answer is the same tonight as it was last night; No. Ceoil (talk) 21:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Introduction - Best Known for?

It's more than a little problematic that the article begins by stating that HD is best known for her association with two male poets. This dismisses the importance of her work on its own terms. I propose changing it from "best known for her association with" to "associated with". Taking out "best" would also make for a more objective statement.Qassandra (talk) 14:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm not entirely sure I agree. HD indeed is well-known for her role in the imagist movement - the other two poets happened to be male. Without Pound, she might well never have been published, at all. In fact Ezra Pound's article also states that he is known for developing imagism - certainly am open to rewording along those lines, but I don't think much can done about the fact that Pound and Aldington were men. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I removed the word "best" and think it makes sense. That way the association with Imagism is still there, but we're not qualifying it with a questionable term. Arguably, nowadays, she is as well known for Trilogy as she is her Imagist work.--Oreadic (talk) 21:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It really depends on what the sources say. I had a look at some current bios and scholarship yesterday and everything mentions her association with Aldington/Pound/Imagism. Everything. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)