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Sto caricando le informazioni... H.D.: Collected Poems, 1912-1944di H.D.
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. I enjoy her earlier poetry, but the latter hurts my brain. ( ) For my April memorization poem, I'm giving myself a bit of a challenge: H.D.'s multi-page tapestry of words known as "Other sea-cities." Among all of the gorgeous verses penned by Hilda Doolittle, this might be my favorite. It's really too long to paste the whole thing here, but the first section, which is also a repeating motif to which the poem flows back again and again, changing its shape and context every time, is this: Other sea-cities have faltered, and striven with the tide, other sea-cities have struggled and died: other sea-walls were stricken and the pride of galleys broken, only you, remained, beautiful, O sea-bride! I love this poem on a level almost divorced from content. Yes, the subject is pleasing, and I'm drawn to its nostalgic-yet-troubled depiction of a long history of great and beautiful seaside cities, all but one fallen long ago. I love the layered evocation of life in these cities, as in the verses: and laughter- everywhere, there was laughter; a boy with a fish-net, a girl with a hamper of lampreys, the long days, scented with tamarisk, the long nights sweet with the aloes, the fruit piled in baskets, the merchants with fresh scents from Arabia, from Cos, the wind when it rose high would open a shutter, a girl in a blue veil would push it, and rain print her garment upon her, till she stood, blue like lapis, slaves drag from the harbor: did these love sea-beauty less than you, mistress, O sea-blest? Why them and not you? H.D. asks over and over of her unnamed, still-extant city by the sea. What did you know that they didn't? Were their lives not brilliantly full enough? Their art not sufficiently perfect? Although the poem is a kind of ode to the city that remains, I come away, each time I re-read it, with more of a sense of loss for the cities that have gone. The vivid scenes she paints, the marble monuments she describes, the explorers, prophets and priests, are all citizens of the other cities, the lost cities, and although there is an implication that the remaining city does all of these things even better - has even more beautiful women, even greater artistic accomplishments - there is also a note of sadness and even reproach at the loss of her sisters. Their violet was as violet, the speaker cries. Why is it now bleached-out on the ocean? A question to which anyone who has suffered loss can probably relate. Their blue was as sea-blue, their purple as purple, indigo was indigo, violet, violet and red ran its riot like the open red pomegranate. they knew all the gamut of glass that took your name; you reaped fame from their fame; crystal, white-gold or ash-gold, amethyst, or fire amethyst, gem, salt-water, clear air; her craftsmen wrought marvels, sea-creatures, sea-bubbles; amber caught light like the sea-weed a-wash on the sea-stair, but men naming such ware, speak of you not of rich Tyre. "They knew all the gamut / of glass / that took your name." Such a beautiful line. But it's the rhythms of the poem that really get me - the way that central motifs recur again and again in unexpected ways, tying in each new idea without drawing explicit connections, engendering in the reader a sense of return - very suited to the theme of of the immortal city and all the others to which no one can go back. At times the ear picks up the melody of that opening verse, even when the words aren't repeated, or the words will be repeated with variations on the theme. These refrains also, of course, imitate a chant, an element of ritual in mourning and paying tribute. Saying it out loud can be a very meditative experience - you become awash in the motion of the poem, just as (appropriately enough) a person can gaze hypnotized at ocean waves, cresting and retreating. And, just like the waves on the ocean can surprise you from the side or follow closer and further apart in sequence, the rhymes, alliteration and assonance in "Other sea-cities" are staggered in a gorgeous and unpredictable way, playing off each other to great effect: Other sea-cities fell though they built patiently and well, other sea-cities wrought intricate details from rare rock, stolen from inland, set great lumps of lapis above altars and placed lamps of alabaster or agate before god's feet or goddess: other sea-cities, named Beauty their mistress All in all, it's a gorgeous opus. I have to admit that the prospect of memorizing the entire thing is a bit daunting, but I'm positive that being able to recite it to myself quietly while walking near my own western ocean will be ample recompense. Tell city, your secret: for others built beautifully and well, but fell to lie like a bleached hull; other sea-cities have faltered and striven with the tide, other sea-cities have struggled and died: other sea-hulks were stricken, riven and the pride of galleys broken, not one beside you, remained, beautiful, O, Sea-Bride. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
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Of special significance are the "Uncollected and Unpublished Poems (1912-1944)," the third section of the book, written mainly in the 1930s, during H. D.'s supposed "fallow" period. As these pages reveal, she was in fact writing a great deal of important poetry at the time, although publishing only a small part of it. The later, wartime poems in this section form an essential prologue to her magnificent Trilogy (1944), the fourth and culminating part of this book. Born in Pennsylvaniain 1886, Hilda Doolittle moved to London in 1911 in the footsteps of her friend and one-time fiancé Ezra Pound. Indeed it was Pound, acting as the London scout for Poetry magazine, who helped her begin her extraordinary career, penning the words "H. D., Imagiste" to a group of six poems and sending them on to editor Harriet Monroe in Chicago. The Collected Poems 1912-1944 traces the continual expansion of H. D.'s work from her early imagistic mode to the prophetic style of her "hidden" yearsin the 1930s, climaxing in the broader, mature accomplishment of Trilogy. The book is edited by Professor Louis L. Martz of Yale, who supplies valuable textual notes and an introductory essay that relates the significance of H. D.'s life to her equally remarkable literary achievement. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)811.52Literature English (North America) American poetry 20th Century 1900-1945Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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