The essay argues that the concepts of growth, process and transformation, form the generative core of H.D.’s imaginative world and make her Imagiste poems radically different from those written by Ezra Pound. Process and transformation, it maintains, in H.D.’s writing are embodied in two precise, symbolic words: “wind” and “formula.” Providing an elemental image which is natural and mythical at the same time, the wind conveys the movement of the mind and the construction of an active subject. H.D.’s “formula,” on the other hand, works as an alternative symbol to Pound’s vortex. In it alchemy provides a metaphor for psychic processes, literary texts and their projection in time. It underscores H.D.’s aspiration to a poetry made event, capable, that is, of initiating new time by transforming, and not only testifying to, human and psychic history.
“H.D’s Dynamic Imagism, or the “Art of the Future”
CAMBONI, Marina
2014-01-01
Abstract
The essay argues that the concepts of growth, process and transformation, form the generative core of H.D.’s imaginative world and make her Imagiste poems radically different from those written by Ezra Pound. Process and transformation, it maintains, in H.D.’s writing are embodied in two precise, symbolic words: “wind” and “formula.” Providing an elemental image which is natural and mythical at the same time, the wind conveys the movement of the mind and the construction of an active subject. H.D.’s “formula,” on the other hand, works as an alternative symbol to Pound’s vortex. In it alchemy provides a metaphor for psychic processes, literary texts and their projection in time. It underscores H.D.’s aspiration to a poetry made event, capable, that is, of initiating new time by transforming, and not only testifying to, human and psychic history.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
