About H.D.
…chasm, schism in consciousness
must be bridged over
Achieving early recognition as a member of the Imagist poetry movement, H.D. progressed through experimentation in a variety of genres during her long career. The extent of her canon was fully realised only after her death, when renewed interest in her work, particularly among feminist critics, led to extensive republication, assessment and teaching of H.D.'s writing. Today she is widely regarded as an important figure in literary modernism, although the extent of her influence remains a matter of debate.
H.D.'s style was tight, chiselled, remote and sometimes precious – a style that she and others called crystal and air
. She made characteristic use of motifs from classical, particularly Greek and Egyptian, mythology, drawing her own web of connections from these to form a sometimes highly subjective personal mythos.