Hermetic Definition

Doolittle Hilda

HD (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) wrote "Hermetic Definition" at the height of her poetic powers. With her celebrated War Trilogy ("The Walls Do Not Fall", "Tribute to the Angels", and "Flowering of the Rod"), it transcends her earlier purist style, achieving a range accessible only to a major poet. HD, because of her early association with the Imagist movement, particularly with Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, F. S. Flint, and T. S. Eliot, has long been regarded as the exquisite miniaturist, the Imagist par excellence. But her real achievement is in the poems and prose of her maturity, where her technique and rhythms expand to deal with an awareness not only of perfection but also, in the face of painful experience – the War and personal hardship – of perfection's passing.

About the Author

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) is now acknowledged as a major Modernist, of the company of Eliot and Pound, Joyce and Lawrence. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1886 and moved to London in 1911, where she was one of the earliest Imagists. Her major works include "Trilogy" (1944-1946) and "Helen in Egypt" (1961). She died in 1961.

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