Biography of H. D.

Hilda Doolittle was born in Pennsylvania in 1886 into a large, intellectual family that was part of the Moravian Protestant sect. She attended Bryn Mawr College for a year where she befriended poet Marianne Moore, but dropped out due to poor health. She then attended the University of Pennsylvania where she met William Carlos Williams, and became romantically involved with Ezra Pound. Upon traveling to Europe in 1911, H.D. became heavily involved in the short-lived but important Imagist poetry movement—a style focused on powerful and precise imagery and poetic economy. Her poems were first published in Poetry magazine in 1913, and she published her first collection, Sea Garden, in 1916.

For the remainder of her career, H.D. lived abroad, mainly in Switzerland and Britain. She continued to publish her work consistently in personal collections as well as anthologies, and also wrote autobiographically. Although she maintained an emphasis on sharp, clear language and concise observation of the visual, this style shifted in some of her later work around more long-form explorations of mysticism and Greek mythology. Some of H.D.’s works include Heliodora, and Other Poems (1924), Collected Poems (1925), Red Roses for Bronze (1931), The Usual Star (1934), What Do I Love? (1943), The Walls Do Not Fall (1944), Tribute to the Angels (1945), By Avon River (1949), and Helen in Egypt (1961), for which she was lauded.

On a recommendation, H.D. began analysis with Sigmund Freud in 1933, hoping to heal past traumas and discuss her fear of another world war. She developed a profound belief in the power of psychoanalysis, and felt that this approach to the mind could improve the human race dramatically. It was her hope, according to Freud, that she could found a new religion that incorporated some of the themes and tenants of psychoanalytic thought. A few years before her death she published Tribute to Freud (1956).

H.D. married Richard Aldington—a British poet, novelist, and fellow Imagist—in 1913. Several years later she endured the trauma of a stillbirth, which may have contributed to some of her ideas in her first collection. She and Aldington separated in 1918 after his affair with Dorothy York, and she began a romance with Scot Cecil Gray in 1919 that resulted in the birth of her daughter Perdita. In 1918 she also began a lesbian romance with the poet Winifred Ellerman (pen name Bryher), and H.D. lived with Ellerman and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, who formally adopted Perdita. They lived as polyamorous lovers for quite some time, but when she became pregnant with Macpherson’s child she chose not to carry through the pregnancy. H.D. and Aldington formally divorced in 1938, and H.D. and Ellerman continued their relationship until H.D.’s death in Zurich, Switzerland at age 75.


Study Guides on Works by H. D.

Hilda Doolittle is known widely by her initials, H.D. “Evening" is one of the poems belonging to Sea Garden (1916), a book of poems in which H.D. examines the themes of gender, sexuality, feminism, and the human condition through the metaphor and...

Hilda Doolittle—known professionally as H.D.—developed a fascination with Greek mythology early in her career, and was known for harnessing the legends of myth to make broader statements about culture and feminism. In 1923, during her transition...

"Lethe" can be found in H.D.'s 1924 collection Heliodora, which contains many other poems that allude to Greek mythology. Lethe is a fixture in Greek mythology—a river in Hades that causes those who drink the water to forget their past. Lethe was...

"Oread," one of H.D.'s earlier poems, was first published in the magazine BLAST in 1914 and has become one of her most anthologized works. Scholar Gary Burnett points out that the publishing history of the poem is notable. While "Oread" is one of...

Hilda Doolittle is known widely by her initials, H.D. “Sea Rose” is one of the poems belonging to Sea Garden (1916), a book of poems in which H.D. examines the themes of gender, sexuality, conformity, and value by using natural scenery as...

“Sea Violet" is part of H.D.'s first collection, Sea Garden (1916), a book of poems in which she examines themes of gender, sexuality, conformity, and value through the metaphor and symbolism of flowers. Like "Sea Rose" and "Sea Lily," also from ...

In 1944, the poet named Hilda Doolittle who is better known simply by her initials H.D. announced with a vengeance her return to poetry after a turn toward fiction and film starting in the early 1930’s. That period was also marked by seeking help...

Along with Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, modernist poet H.D. acted as a central figure in the burgeoning Imagist poetry movement. The writers were inspired by Japanese Haikus and ancient Greek verse, and sought to increase the...