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The Professor & The Poet: Freud & H.D., September 23, 2009
This review is from: Tribute to Freud (Paperback)
Tribute to Freud
by H. D.
It was arranged for H. D., stale, blocked & fearful of the impending disaster, remembering the horrors of WWI, to meet with Freud himself in Vienna (1933, 1934). The analysis was a success--her writing again became inspired. Her Tribute to the "Professor" portion, "Writing on the Wall", written in 1944 (she says) London, is an account of their interaction. The last diary-like dream-recording portion of her time with Freud, "Advent," was put together much later after WWII, while in Switzerland, when she reworked the earlier work & incorporated materials from her journals.
She tells him how her brother borrowed a magnifying glass from their father's forbidden desk. He showed little her how it could be used to burn some paper, and how the father only mildly reprimanded him, so unlike Prometheus' Father.
And of how once her brother got stubborn, and wouldn't come home with his mother who went around the corner and pretended to leave, and how little Hilda stayed with him, rather than following her mom. In analysis, she saw Freud as "mother," not reaching the desired Oedipal stage, according to the Professor.
And in a discussion on ambivalence, she slyly asks the Professor how the word "ambivalent" is pronounced, "ambi-valent?" or "am-bi-valent?". Freud, just as slyly, says he wishes someone would explain all that to him.
Being a student/analysand in his very chambers was a crowning "achievement" in her life of "spiral-like meanderings." As the poet thinks of this development she remembers The Chambered Nautilus in "life's unresting sea;" of how Freud had "brought me home" as was the weary wanderer in Poe's To Helen.
In one session Freud gave H. D. some oranges from a box he had received from his son, who had brought them from the south of France. Some of the oranges still had attached branches & leaves. She thanked him, perhaps with "how lovely," etc., but couldn't speak the singing thoughts the fruit brought back: about a song she sang in school, Kennst du das Land ...where die Gold-Orangen grow. (We find that the word paradise is derived from the Hebrew word for orange grove, pardes .) In Corfu with Bryher in1920, H. D. had three visions in her bedroom: perhaps of her brother, killed in the war, then a chalice, then a tripod of victory or "the tripod of classic Delphi", while outside their actual window were orange trees in "full leaf and fruit and flower." She thinks of Edenic green pastures, still waters, "fragrance of myrtle thickets ... and the groves of flowering citrons." She asks herself, "Kennst du das Land?" & replies, "Oh yes, Professor, I know it very well."
Ein sanfter Wind "Yes, It was dark & cold and there was the rumbling of war-chariots ... but upon the old Professor ... a soft wind blew ..." Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht? Still we have "the myrtle of Aphrodite and the laurel of Apollo..." And yes, "the myrtle ... did not flutter a leaf, and the laurel grew very tall there." Goethe's poem became rather a loom; her non-linear weaving & reweaving (like Penelope she says) became a tapestry of her concerns & Freud's responses. There is much more not touched on here.
Kennst du das Haus? Und Marmorbilder stehn ...
"You do know the house, don't you? ... It is there that we find the statues ... on the Professor's table. The statues stare and stare and seem to say, what has happened to you?" Mostly ancient Greek & Egyptian, Freud said that she was the first person who came to him & looked at his figurines & art collection before they looked at him!
Kennst du den Berg ... Going to see Freud, "The Porter said, `You know Bergasse? She "turned in at the" famous "entrance, Bergasse 19, Wein IX, it was." ... und seinen Wolkenst? "Do you know the mountain and the cloud-bridge?" "There is plenty of psychoanalytic building and constructing in this bridge. A suitable "translation of the Professor and our work together."
As the person's soul asks or implores, H. D. circles back through her thoughts & Goethe's poem, a lyrical round, picking up new comparisons, new energy, new import. She slowly & gently impresses us with her account. We go with her, with Goethe's soul, with Freud: o mein Geliebter,... o mein Beschützer Oh my beloved ... "I want to go with you there, O my Guardian, O my Protector."
Of Freud
you sang enjoyed.
We hear your song,
loving, warm, not sang-froid.
Oh H.D.!
Poet, vestal, womanly,
forget you not shall we!
And we are reminded of these lines from one of her early poems, & her a Graecophile:
What are the islands to me,
what is Greece ...
What are the islands to me
if you are lost ... ?
(rev. 9.28.09)
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