Cosmology in H.D.’S Trilogy: Poetics, Logos and Trace
Author's Department
English & Comparative Literature Department
Document Type
Research Article
Publication Title
Analecta Husserliana
Publication Date
2016
doi
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21792-5_19
Abstract
This paper examines the poetics of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) in terms of a set of phenomenological concerns that have been explored philosophically in the work of Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger. Foremost among these concerns is the significance of writing, understood as either a counter to verbal discourse or as the basis for a new poetics. This concern is abundantly evident in the author’s late work, Trilogy, a long meditation on history and spiritual beginnings that casts light on the personal commitments of the poet. The paper compares Derrida’s opposition between speech and writing to Heidegger’s criticism of traditional metaphysics while sustaining the importance of phenomenology to both positions. After offering an analysis of the poem, the paper considers the significance of plurality to the evocation of community and to the implied cosmology that the poem itself would have us consider and affirm.
First Page
275
Last Page
289
Recommended Citation
Melaney, W.D. (2016). Cosmology in H.D.’S Trilogy: Poetics, Logos and Trace. In: Tymieniecka, AT., Trutty-Coohill, P. (eds) The Cosmos and the Creative Imagination. Analecta Husserliana, vol 119. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21792-5_19