Faraci 1
Jacklyn Faraci
Dr. Scanlon
English 457P
21 April 2011
A Search for Artistic Identity Through Self-Analysis
The writing that H.D. composes after her analysis with Freud proves she is a woman with
the ability to personally overcome the writer’s block she experiences, but more importantly she
learns to craft poetry and prose that illustrate her capacity to emerge as an independent female
artist with a confident and ambitious voice that was originally silenced in her early career. While
surrounding herself with advocates of psychoanalysis and experiencing personal psychoanalytic
sessions with Sigmund Freud over a period of two years, H.D. is able to continue and develop
her analysis and form ideas that allow her to write beyond the conventional restrictions of
traditional patriarchal literature that originally silenced her. Personal letters in addition to her
works, Tribute to Freud and “The Master” poem illustrate H.D.’s process and discovery of true
creative talent that lead her to become one of the most prolific international poets of today.
The time period in which H.D. is trying to find an artistic voice was a troubling one for
many female poets. In her book Naked and Fiery Forms Susan Juhasz explains the
circumstances, “To be a woman poet in our society is a double-bind situation, one of conflict and
one of strain. For the words ‘woman’ and ‘poet’ denote opposite and contradictory qualities and
roles” (Juhasz 1). H.D., who is principally a female modernist poet, was a victim of this
conflicted situation, and she struggles to escape its constraints. Her modernist aesthetics were
largely influenced by literary figures such as Ezra Pound and other men who advocated a
heterosexual and masculine modernism. These male mentors in her early writing career were
Faraci 2
consistently reshaping her work and rejecting her innovative talent. And consequently she strived
to find a balance between her style and theirs. Years later she reflects on the difficulty in finding
this balance in her memoir Tribute to Freud, “They seemed banded against me; so many people
had tried to break my faith” (TF 152). With so many critics against her way of writing, H.D. and
other female poets found it difficult to find equilibrium among one style and another. This
difficulty eventually resulted in an inability to write for some. H.D. explains her torn position to
Bryher in a letter, “I have a sort of split-infinitive, or a split dual personality. One of them is
writing and one is not writing. I am doing my best to get the two together. But I am prodded too
much. . . The only problem is to get the two rails going together” (7 Dec. 1934). The “not
writing” personality begins to take over as the pressure sets in on H.D. This anxiety piles on to
the pressures she experiences in the literary world itself. In Georgina Taylor’s essay “H.D. and
the Public Sphere of Modernist Women Writers” she writes about H.D.’s dilemma with being a
female modernist poet in the literary world:
High Modernism. . . In its formal imperative to chart the unconscious and its historical
imperative to “make it new,” often finds itself in direct conflict with the public sphere's
valuation of rationality. . . To apply such a theory to women's literary production raises
further problems, since the public sphere was structurally dependent on the exclusion of
women, who were relegated to the intimate concerns of the private sphere (Taylor 510).
H.D.’s collection of poems and novels published in the 1920’s illustrate that initially she
overcame the obstacle of female exclusion in literary production; however Taylor explains that
the traditional patriarchy in literature and Modernism made it difficult for a female poet to
develop much further. The seemingly endless conflict and struggle for the female artist left H.D.
insecure, voiceless, and almost on the verge of a psychological breakdown.
While H.D. was attempting to find her place in the literary world she was also forced to
deal with the anxiety of the complicated relationships in her life. In Susan Friedman’s book
Faraci 3
Psyche Reborn: The Emergence of H.D. she explains what significance the male relationships in
H.D.’s life had for her: “Her journals, memoirs, and autobiographical novels portray a series of
relationships with men in which she is, or at least feels, rejected. Pound, Aldington, Lawrence,
Macpherson, and Dowding seem to have been the most important. . .” (Friedman 37). Many of
these men happened to be lovers as well as literary critics. This form of doubled rejection for
H.D. drove her further into a psychological shut down and additionally removed her desire and
inspiration to write. Her rejection also represents her failure to keep up with these powerful male
critics in her life, both artistically and physically. Friedman also rightfully asserts that the anxiety
caused by these relationships leads to a downward spiral in H.D.’s art, “H.D.’s writing block in
the thirties was at least partially the result of the vulnerability she felt as a woman in a man’s
world” (Friedman 37). This man’s world, if referring back to Taylor’s definition of High
Modernism, excluded women from its sphere and for this reason H.D. felt as though she could
never exclusively belong to the “man’s world.” These feelings of artistic inadequacy preoccupy
her for years to come. In the early years of her sessions with Freud, personal letters to Bryher
demonstrate that the image of literary men, especially those who rejected her, haunted her and
hindered her ability to write. She struggles with the idea of being an inadequate artist, “I think I
will finally get this idea out of my head of being a back-number” (12 May 1933). And a few days
later she writes to Bryher again, “I keep dreaming of literary men, Shaw, Cunninghame,
Grahame, now Noel Coward and Lawrence himself, over and over. It is important as book means
penis evidently and as a ‘writer,’ only, I am equal in [unconscious], in the right way of men.
Most odd” (15 May 1933). When a book equates to “penis” it is understood that H.D. obviously
cannot compete without this form of manhood. An so with all her artistic ability aside, H.D.
Faraci 4
struggles with the idea of writing amid these men because she believes that part of her identity
can never entirely match up and she will always be considered a “back-number” or second-best.
Although H.D. cannot keep these literary men out of her thoughts, in Tribute to Freud
H.D. demonstrates a turning point in her life. She begins to express a desire to escape the
victimization she has experienced by these men, “I wanted to free myself of repetitive thought
and experiences—my own and those of many of my contemporaries” (TF 13). Men, like Ezra
Pound, could never wholly accept H.D. as a female poet into their literary circle. Pound is
accredited to giving H.D. her signature “H.D. Imagiste” because the title gave her androgyny and
did not fully disclose that she was a brilliant, but female, writer. So in a sense Pound and others
were forcing H.D. to be someone she was not and as a result silencing her artistic identity
altogether. It is only once H.D. turns to psychoanalysis and finds the will to write again, that she
can come to the realization of not needing to follow the traditional conventions of these men and
of literature itself. Tribute to Freud is a reflection of her success in coming to this realization and
proves that psychoanalysis allows her to find the ability to express her artistic voice in texts of
her own in the years after.
If the controversial relationships and influences in H.D.’s life were enough, she would
have met her breaking point much sooner. After experiencing the rejection of her relationships
and dealing with her psychological trouble that resulted from the Great War H.D. felt like she
was losing any last fragment of inspiration for her writing and by 1933 she was hardly writing at
all. In the introduction to Analyzing Freud: Letters of H.D., Bryher and Their Circle the editor
Susan Stanford Friedman writes, “She felt she’d reached a vanishing point of sterility in her
writing. The river of inspiration was clogged with the flotsam and jetsam of postwar angst and
paralysis in the face of the violence to come” (Letters xv). Evidently H.D. felt that she needed to
Faraci 5
work past these disturbing emotions before she could continue her writing. In a letter to Bryher
she reflects on the thought of other (male) writers still having the ability to write insensibly, “I
suppose I am working desperately toward my own ‘resolutions’ of problem, and feel a little far
off and helpless. . . If but I had the pen of a ready writer and the insensibility of R. Aldington,
what a filthy novel I could put over!” (18 Mar. 1933). H.D. was different from Aldington and the
other males of her literary circle in that she felt her writing had no place in the world if it was
silenced by the traditional conventions of early 20th century literature or much less muddled with
her psychological anxieties. Tribute to Freud includes a deeper reflection on the development of
her writer’s block, “I could not get rid of the experience by writing about it. I had tried that.
There was no use in telling the story, into air, as it were, repeatedly…” (TF 40). Therefore,
before her psychoanalytic sessions any attempt to tell her story could not be seen as a successful
expression of her art. Her contemplation in Tribute continues, “My books are not so much stillborn as born from the detached intellect. . . Yet if I become more ‘human’ I seem to lose my
sense of direction. . . There is a feeling that it is only a part of myself there” (TF 149). Without
H.D. feeling like she could have her entire self in her writing, or when referring back to the need
to feel entirely equal to the men in her life, her writing stops. In the coming years H.D. looks for
a resolution through psychoanalysis and attempts to find a way to recapture her repressed artistic
voice and move past a serious writer’s block.
In the year 1933 Bryher suggested psychoanalytic sessions to H.D. She had already
surrounded herself with other advocates of the new science including her lover and friend,
Frances Josepha Gregg, and when H.D. finally agreed to a session she began her own extensive
research in the field. Some of this research included meeting with other psychoanalysts including
Mary Chadwick, Hanns Sachs, Walter Schmideberg, and Erich Hedyt. However, in Tribute to
Faraci 6
Freud she explains her trouble with other analysts, “I felt Miss Chadwick could not follow the
workings of my creative mind. Talking this over with Dr. Hanns Sachs, he agreed that it would
be better to continue the work, if possible with a man and preferably one superior to myself” (TF
150). Although H.D. was interested in psychoanalysis, she was not sure about what the sessions
would do for her. But her hesitance eventually dissolves after she is introduced to one of the
most influential psychoanalysts of her life, Sigmund Freud. At the very beginning of her sessions
she writes a letter to Ezra Pound, “I am working with [Freud] if he can continue with me. I have
been interested in psycho-analysis for some time now, but did not think of taking the actual
plunge till this chance came. . . I do not know that I will actually ever ‘practice’ but want some
kind of weapon in this somewhat weaponless world” (24 Mar. 1933). It becomes clear that H.D.
highly depends on her sessions and instills high hopes in both the science and Freud himself. The
idea of needing psychoanalysis as a weapon foreshadows the influence and strength it will give
her writing in the near future.
H.D. was witnessing the healing of others occur all around her, yet her writing still
suffered. In Tribute to Freud she explains her jealousy of others’ contentment and healing, “I
envied these women who… had found [D.H. Lawrence] some sort of guide or master. I envied
Bryher her hero-worship of the psychoanalyst Dr. Hanns Sachs” (TF 140). H.D. needed to find
someone to worship in her own life that could help with her own personal healing process and a
rediscovery of a new artistic identity. After H.D. was encouraged to meet with the infamous
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud her relationship with him grew to be different than that of any
other psychoanalysts she associated with. H.D. explains in Tribute to Freud, “I mean, I felt that
to meet him at forty-seven, and to be accepted by him as analysand or student, seemed to crown
all my other personal contacts and relationships, justify all the spiral-like meanderings of my
Faraci 7
mind and body. I had come home, in fact” (TF 44). Clearly H.D.’s relationship with Freud was
much more than just a treatment for her mental health if she considers Freud as the “crown of all
her other relationships” and associates her sessions with coming “home.” With Bryher and
Sachs’ encouragement H.D. worked with Freud to come to terms with the trauma that
surrounded her life and silenced her talent. In Tribute to Freud she explicates the rationale of
their sessions, “I wanted to dig down and dig out, root out my personal weeds, strengthen my
purpose, reaffirm my beliefs, canalize my energies, and I seized on the unexpected chance of
working with Professor Freud himself” (91). If H.D. could accomplish all of these goals her
writer’s block could have the possibility of ending. And because H.D. regarded herself as
Freud’s student, rather than his patient her sessions could become successful in doing this.
As a student of the Professor, H.D.’s sessions were always a learning experience for her.
These experiences lead to an analysis that forever shapes her thinking. Several significant
metaphors become lifelong lessons for H.D. during her sessions. She reflects on these lessons in
Tribute to Freud and chooses to adapt each one later on in life while continuing her self-analysis.
In Tribute H.D. writes about the idea of striking oil during her discussions with Freud,
One day he said, “I struck oil. It was I who struck oil. But the contents of the oil wells
have only just been sampled. There is oil enough, material enough for research and
exploitation, to last fifty years, to last one hundred years – or longer.” He said, “My
discoveries are not primarily a heal-all. My discoveries are a basis for a very grave
philosophy. There are very few who understand this, there are very few who are capable
of understanding this.” One day he said to me, “You discovered for yourself what I
discovered for the race.” (TF 18)
This idea of striking oil intrigued H.D. Freud encourages her for having the ability to understand
his philosophies and accredits her with striking the oil within her own mind. She can
acknowledge the new science after only a few weeks of sessions when it took Freud years to
determine the processes of his analysis. Instilling this kind of confidence in H.D. gives her the
Faraci 8
weapon she was looking for with psychoanalysis, a weapon of confidence that she needed for her
writing. She refers to the metaphor again later on in Tribute, “The point was that for all his
amazing originality, he was drawing from a source so deep in human consciousness that the
outer rock or shale, the accumulation of hundreds or thousands of hears of causal, slack, or even
wrong or evil thinking, had all but sealed up the original spring or well-head” (TF 82). Freud had
successfully chipped away all of the outer rock of H.D.’s mind and helped her find what was “all
but sealed up.” With her analysis H.D. discovers more than just the outer meaning of her writing.
She comes to understand that others can transform what she puts on paper, but they cannot alter
what is inside her creative mind. And after being determined to “dig out her personal weeds”
H.D. reflects on another lesson learned in Tribute,
The question must be propounded by the protagonist himself, he must dig it out from its
buried hiding-place, he himself must find the question before it could be answered … He
himself must clear away his own rubbish, before his particular stream, his personal life,
could run clear of obstruction into the great fiver of humanity, hence to the sea of superhuman perfection. . . (TF 84)
H.D.’s relationship with Freud is undoubtedly influential: At the beginning of her sessions she
was in search for herself, for an identity and now the reflection on Freud’s lessons proves that
she has the tools to “strengthen [her] purpose, reaffirm [her] beliefs, and canalize [her] energies”
(TF 91). And completing this process will eventually lead to a major transformation in her
writing that will produce the most significant work of her lifetime.
It is clear that Freud gave H.D. the skills she needed to express her talent in its entirety
with both “striking oil” and digging beneath conscious thought. Freud can also be credited with
assisting H.D. in the process of translating, reading, and writing her thoughts, mainly the
thoughts that were the cause of her writer’s block and repressed identity. When she describes a
dream about Ezra Pound and Frances Josepha Gregg not understanding her new way of thinking
Faraci 9
Freud explains its meaning, “The Professor had said, when I told him of Frances and Ezra and
their apparent lack of sympathy or understanding of my delight in the analysis, that I was
escaping from unwanted memories or putting them aside” (TF 152). H.D. realized many of her
dreams were an interpretation of escaping unwanted memories. This too, became a lesson from
Freud during their analysis. Once H.D. stopped trying to escape her trauma, she could come to
terms with it like she does in Tribute to Freud, “The Spring of 1920 held for me many
unresolved terrors, perils, heartaches, dangers, physical, as well as spiritual or intellectual. If I
had been a little maladjusted or even mildly deranged. It would have been no small wonder” (TF
41). H.D. is not denying or resisting her psychological troubles, in fact she embraces them. This
form of self-revelation leads to H.D. coming into a new artistic identity, one that she slowly
begins to reveal as her psychoanalytic sessions come to an end and her self-analysis continues.
H.D. became an avid defender of Freud’s ideas. Freud’s choice in ending their sessions
becomes his blessing for allowing H.D. to make an attempt at finding her own explanations of
her thoughts. A text like Tribute to Freud demonstrates that she was able to take her knowledge
of the new science, transform it, and eventually develop her own sense of self and nourish the
artist she wanted to become. In her essay “Gifts, Goods, and Gods: H.D., Freud and Trauma”
Ariela Freedman explains, “H.D.’s Tribute to Freud is not simply a translation but is also an
elegy, and as such only possible in his absence. A gift to Freud, it also traces the flowering of her
own poetic gift, and is as much a self-tribute as a tribute to another” (Freedman 184). This
process of continuing analysis on her own and writing her a personal tribute demonstrates to
audiences that H.D. felt the need to express her own theories and expand Freud’s psychoanalysis
model to fit her lifestyle. And in expressing these theories, her writing begins to blossom again.
Katherine Arens discusses the idea of H.D.’s post-Freudian analysis more clearly, she explains
Faraci 10
that in Tribute to Freud H.D. is forming an argument for a total reconceptualization of
Freudianism to fit what her and other women needed in the new historical circumstances (Arens
381). Arens also argues that Tribute to Freud is not just a record of her sessions with Freud,
“H.D. had to undertake a self-analysis to reclaim her voice. This reclamation meant that she had
to. . . reevaluate the goal of her poetics; to do so, H.D. was forced to confront not only her
personal traumas but also the cultural traumas of her generation” (Arens 361). Although Aren’s
idea of “total reconceptualization” comes off as extreme, H.D.’s reevaluation of her past traumas
does indeed allow her to find the confident artistic voice she has been looking for. Arens also
explains that if we reread Tribute to Freud as a self-analysis then it will demonstrate that H.D.
was able to refashion herself as an innovative poet. She states that H.D. shows how “the tools of
poetry can be used to reconceive not only personal experience, but also the inheritance of a
culture brought almost to ruin through its deepest assumptions (particularly those about selfhood,
authority, and gender)” (Arens 362). Envisioning life in a new way through psychoanalysis and
personal examination becomes necessary for the future of her writing career.
Although Katherine Arens makes it clear that H.D. used her analysis with Freud in its
entirety, there is also a clear indication that H.D. did not always agree with Freud in many cases.
And as a result H.D. used her disagreement to refashion the science in order to make it work for
her and create new methods that worked for her writing as well. At her first encounter with Freud
H.D. finds herself challenging him in her thoughts, “My intuition challenged the Professor,
though not in words” (TF 99). This mental challenge delves into deeper explanation when H.D.
refers to the Tree of Knowledge in Tribute,
Faraci 11
I was swifter in some intuitive instances, and sometimes a small tendril of a root from the
great common Tree of Knowledge went deeper into the sub-soil. His were the great giant
roots of that tree, but mine, with hair-like almost invisible feelers, sometimes quivered a
warning or resolved a problem…(TF 98-99)
It was with this Tree of Knowledge metaphor that H.D. gave herself the confidence to move on
with her sessions. As H.D.’s relationship with Freud grew closer she was willing to disagree with
him and these challenges became a healthy way for H.D. to explore her own thoughts. In Tribute
to Freud she expresses her thoughts several times stating that the Professor was not always right,
“I was a student, working under the direction of the greatest mind of this and of perhaps many
succeeding generations. But the Professor was not always right” (TF 18). H.D. clearly did not
know all the answers, but her confrontation created a joint effort among Freud and H.D. to find
the answers together, albeit in different ways. H.D. felt that these disputes were healthy, she
expresses in a letter to Havelock Ellis, “there are ‘blocks’ [with Freud] but no analysis I believe
is considered successful, without come sort of resistance” (5 May 1933). And so unlike Arens’
argument in that H.D. extended her self-analysis after Freud to reclaim her individual voice,
H.D. also confronted and resisted her self-analysis to make the techniques work positively for
her writing. After H.D.’s analysis was pronounced finished Friedman explains, “Continuing selfanalysis went hand in hand with a renewed sense of direction in her writing” (Letters 511).
This new sense of direction in H.D.’s writing is undoubtedly evident in her poem titled
“The Master” that was written in the years following her analysis. Although Tribute to Freud
expresses H.D.’s feelings toward Freud’s theories, the book is still in the process of making
sense of Freudianism and psychoanalysis rather than resisting it, whereas “The Master” poem
takes on confrontation as its main subject. The poem’s honest, unsubtle expression appears rarely
in H.D.’s other texts like Tribute to Freud where she briefly comments on the Professor’s ideas
about her artistic identity, “I was rather annoyed with the Professor in one of his volumes. He
Faraci 12
said (as I remember) that women did not creatively amount to anything or amount to much,
unless they has a male counterpart or a male companion from whom they drew their
inspirations” (TF 149). The poem, on the other hand, does not simply make a passive comment
on her opinions towards Freud’s utterances, she is outraged, “I was angry with the old man / with
his talk of the man-strength, / I was angry with his mystery, his mysteries, / I argued till daybreak” (IV). Although Tribute to Freud expresses gratitude and appreciation for Freud, “The
Master” poem also demonstrates a poetic challenge towards Freud. The poem disputes the role of
a woman by fusing the roles of the poet a priestess or prophetess (a combination Freud would not
approve of because he felt these identities should be kept separate), “She is a woman, / yet
beyond woman / yet in woman, / her feet are the delicate pulse of the narcissus bud” (V). This
poet-prophetess character creates an identity H.D. strived to attain in her own life while she
wrote and saw visions. The poem continues by having the woman counter the “man-strength,”
“for she needs no man, / herself / is that dart and pulse of the male, / hands, feet, thighs,/ herself
perfect” (V). This priestess does not struggle in the man’s world patriarchy that traumatized
H.D.’s early writing career and by creating her H.D. challenges Freud’s ideas on women. By
doing this she consequently creates an overt resistance to Freud’s beliefs. In Psyche Reborn
Friedman explains that in writing “The Master” H.D. “had an immediate and concrete relevance
to her identity as a woman artist” (Freidman 121). Therefore, it can be concluded that this new
form of writing was not only reflecting or developing H.D.’s analysis with Freud; it also allowed
her to illustrate a development in talent that ultimately gives her the artistic identity she needs to
break free from her writer’s block and traditional literary conventions.
Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Susan Stanford Friedman see another interpretation of “The
Master” poem in their essay “’Woman is Perfect’: H.D.’s Debate With Freud.” These critics
Faraci 13
take the fact that H.D. never published this poem into consideration. Their argument states that
the confrontational tone of the poem could have spoiled Freud’s impact of analysis on H.D. They
write, “She felt she had made peace with Freud—and with their differences—did not want to
raise controversy she had, in other perhaps more repressive ways, resolved” (DuPlessis,
Friedman 424). In this sense of an argument, the fact that H.D. equates Freud with God in the
poem can be significant. She begins the poem with, “the old man / I knew wisdom, / I found
measureless truth / in his words, / his command / was final;” and later, “I had to recognize that he
was beyond all-men / nearer to God” (I). Although the poem has a confrontational and
challenging tone, H.D.’s adulation of Freud is still clearly present. DuPlessis and Friedman
continue defending the poem, “Because Freud helped her regain the creative drive which was her
identity, H.D. says in ‘The Master,’ ‘it was he who set me free to prophesy’ (VIII). This word
‘prophesy’ appears repeatedly as a synonym for ‘writing.’” (DuPlessis, Friedman 425). Hence
the argument that Freud’s analysis led H.D. to discovery of her creative identity can be
confirmed. The argument continues by asserting, “Freud’s comment ‘you are a poet’ in section
VIII not only sets H.D. free from the undesirable discipleship, but it also alludes to his delight
that analysis had helped free her from writer’s block” (425). The discipleship they refer to is that
of the restricting male influences H.D. associated with in her early life. Analyzing this poem
makes it clear H.D. left her psychoanalytic sessions as a refreshed artist. And with DuPlessis’
and Friedman’s argument and the controversial subject matter of the poem itself, it is clear that
this poem becomes as DuPlessis and Friedman rightly state, “a blueprint of H.D.’s future
development as a poet, a development which could not have occurred without both the
affirmations and challenges of the analysis with Freud” (427). The idea that H.D. was both
defying and worshiping Freud in the poem can work together as the type of development that
Faraci 14
DuPlessis and Friedman discuss. The creation of the poem gives H.D. an opportunity to
experiment a new artistic voice after a period of writer’s block. And this experimentation
becomes a plan for the reconstruction of the female’s position in literature entirely.
Now that it is clear that H.D’s collaboration with Freud enriched her writing, one can see
that H.D. found her way back into writing. Her self-analysis gives a gift that she can continue to
develop and eventually share with others. In her essay “’She herself is the writing’: Language
and Sex Identity in H.D.” Nora Crow Jaffe writes, “Since she suffered from silence both as a
writer and as analysand, she proceeded to give speech to silent women” (Jaffe 107). H.D.’s
version of psychoanalysis allowed her to find the power of writing again. Friedman explains in
Letters “The walls of this fortification resided . . . in what he taught her to do for herself. The
success of the ‘talking cure,’ at least in her case, is located in her ability to transpose the drama
of analysis she experienced with Freud into the ‘writing cure’ of her continuing self-analysis
projected onto the page” (Letters 537-38). By projecting her healing process on paper in a public
text like Tribute to Freud or in her personal expressions via letters to close friends, H.D. can
begin the process of sharing her self-healing or self-discovery process with others. And although
private, “The Master” poem demonstrates that H.D. is in preparation for refashioning writing and
poetry among all struggling female artists. Katherine Arens reiterates this influence, “To her
contemporaries, [Tribute to Freud] authorized H.D. as part of the analytic establishment; it also
placed her in the category of many first-generation analysts who nominally began as patients and
ended as students and analytic professionals” (Arens 360). H.D. was finally beginning to
empower herself as both a writer and now a analytic professional. By no means does H.D. match
up to Freud in her psychoanalytic knowledge, but her awareness of the science in addition to its
expression through her writing makes her personal power two fold in comparison to Freud’s
Faraci 15
because she has an influence on the literary world that he cannot. In a letter to Bryher she writes,
“I went through such an inferno that I seem to have come out the other end and say to myself I
am, I am, I AM a POET and you know I never said that before” (7 August 1935). H.D.’s escape
from constrictions and emergence as a confident female writer demonstrates the power all
women can have in literature, a power that becomes the makings for a reconstruction of all
female writing. In her essay “Not Each in Isolation” Martha Nell Smith defends H.D.’s talent by
arguing the power of H.D.’s writing in the 20th century literary world, “[Her poetry] can be read
as an attempt to deconstruct male representations of woman at her most traditionally esteemed,
and in this she begins to articulate women’s perspective. Facing how she has been written over
by patriarchal culture, the self written upon begins to become the self who seizes the power of
naming and writes” (Smith 49). Smith could not argue a better point for H.D.’s influence in the
reconstruction of the female poet. H.D. unquestionably finds her way to become an independent
female artist through her own self reflection and she unknowingly becomes an exemplar for
countless others along the way.
The process of finding her artistic identity again was slow for H.D., but by working with
Sigmund Freud and subsequently finding ways to refashion the ideas of psychoanalysis H.D. was
able to overcome a majority of the trauma she faced in her early life. In writing to Bryher she
expresses the happiness she feels in her new discovery, “I am happy here—miss you terribly. But
I suppose if I am ever to get on with my life, I must weed out, and it is slow work, like an overgrown garden—and it takes time and patience” (9 Dec. 1934). The years following her analysis
give H.D. the time and patience she needs. Her process of reflection in Tribute to Freud and her
unpublished poem, “The Master,” grow to be the means for a much needed self-healing. In
another letter to Bryher after the completion of her analysis H.D. dreams of starting to live her
Faraci 16
life again, “I simply want to get perspective on the past years, this middle act of the play. War
etc. is act I, then the middle act, now I am beginning the last and most exciting, I hope” (13 Nov.
1935). By unconventionally comparing her life to a play, H.D. has a new outlook on her life.
She plans to employ her writing to make her life a work of art, rather than an anxiety ridden
artistic collapse. As her writing develops and the final act of her life’s play takes place H.D.
moves past the difficult times in her life and eventually emerges as the confident female artist
who she and Sigmund Freud allowed her to become.
Faraci 17
Works Cited
Arens, Katherine. "H.D.'s Post-Freudian Cultural Analysis: Nike Verus Oedipus." American
Imago 52.4 (1995): 359-404. Project MUSE. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v052/52.4arens.html>.
Chisholm, Dianne. H.D.'s Freudian Poetics: Psychoanalysis in Translation. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1992. Print.
DuPlessis, Rachel B., and Susan S. Friedman. ""Woman Is Perfect": H.D.'s Debate with Freud."
Feminist Studies, Inc. 7.3 (1981): 417-30. JSTOR. Web. 19 Apr. 2011
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3177758>.
Friedman, Susan S., ed. Analyzing Freud: Letters of H.D., Bryher and Their Circle. New York:
New Directions Corporation, 2002. Print.
Friedman, Susan S. Psyche Reborn: The Emergence of H.D. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1981.
H.D. “The Master.” H.D. Collected Poems 1912-1944. New York: New Directions Publishing
Corporation, 1986.
H.D. Tribute to Freud. Boston: David R. Godine, 1974. Print.
Jaffe, Nora C. "’She herself is the writing’: Language and Sex Identity in H.D." Literature and
Medicine 4 (1985): 86-111. Project MUSE. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/literature_and_medicine/summary/v004/4.jaffe.html>.
Faraci 18
Juhasz, Suzanne. Naked and Fiery Forms: Modern American Poetry by Women, a New
Tradition. New York: Octagon, 1976. Print.
Smith, Martha N. "Not Each in Isolation." H.D. Newsletter 2.1 (1988): 48-51. Print.