Trilogy [Paperback]

H.D. (Author), Aliki Barnstone (Editor)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Classic

The classic Trilogy by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961), including a large section of referential notes for readers and students, compiled by Professor Aliki Barnstone.

As civilian war poetry (written under the shattering impact of World War II). Trilogy's three long poems rank with T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" and Ezra Pound's "Pisan Cantos." The first book of the Trilogy, "The Walls Do Not Fall," published in the midst of the "fifty thousand incidents" of the London blitz, maintains the hope that though "we have no map; / possibly we will reach haven,/ heaven." "Tribute to Angels" describes new life springing from the ruins, and finally, in "The Flowering of the Rod"—with its epigram "...pause to give/ thanks that we rise again from death and live."—faith in love and resurrection is realized in lyric and strongly Biblical imagery.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...But what doesn't need illumination is the similarity (and difference) of Trilogy to Pound's Cantos, a collection of more than 100 poems begun in 1917 and written over 40 years of that poet's life. In them, classical and Renaissance literary scenes and figures are combined with American and European history and Oriental thought that strain the knowledge of even the most well-read person. Yet, where Pound showed the love for a woman to be the cause of man's wars, H.D. elevated the female to the persona of "the Lady," a nurturing combination of early earth goddesses and the many Marys mentioned in the New Testament. The image of this "new Eve" is in sharp, clear and restorative contrast to the negative qualities of Pound's mythological Helen of Troy or the very real rain of German bombs onto London in 1944 when H.D. wrote "Trilogy". In some ways, those two words-"the lady"-are the ultimate triumph over language that has been stripped to its purest, most evocative form by one of poetry's premiere practitioners. -- Home News Tribune, 2 March 1999

H.D. spoke of essentials. It is a simplicity not of reduction but of having gone further our of the circle of known light, further toward an unknown center. -- Denise Levertov

The Flowering Of The Rod: 11
The Flowering Of The Rod: 12
The Flowering Of The Rod: 13
The Flowering Of The Rod: 14
The Flowering Of The Rod: 15
The Flowering Of The Rod: 16
The Flowering Of The Rod: 17
The Flowering Of The Rod: 18
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The Flowering Of The Rod: 27
The Flowering Of The Rod: 28
The Flowering Of The Rod: 29
The Flowering Of The Rod: 30
The Flowering Of The Rod: 31
The Flowering Of The Rod: 32
The Flowering Of The Rod: 33
The Flowering Of The Rod: 34
The Flowering Of The Rod: 35
The Flowering Of The Rod: 36
The Flowering Of The Rod: 37
The Flowering Of The Rod: 38
The Flowering Of The Rod: 39
The Flowering Of The Rod: 40
The Flowering Of The Rod: 41
The Flowering Of The Rod: 42
The Flowering Of The Rod: 43
Tribute To The Angels: 15
Tribute To The Angels: 21
Tribute To The Angels: 22
Tribute To The Angels: 5
The Walls Do Not Fall: 11
The Walls Do Not Fall: 12
The Walls Do Not Fall: 15
The Walls Do Not Fall: 17
The Walls Do Not Fall: 18
The Walls Do Not Fall: 19
The Walls Do Not Fall: 25
The Walls Do Not Fall: 26
The Walls Do Not Fall: 27
The Walls Do Not Fall: 28
The Walls Do Not Fall: 29
The Walls Do Not Fall: 30
The Walls Do Not Fall: 31
The Walls Do Not Fall: 32
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The Walls Do Not Fall: 35
The Walls Do Not Fall: 36
The Walls Do Not Fall: 37
The Walls Do Not Fall: 38
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

[O]ne of the great long poetry sequences of the century, and we should be grateful to New Directions for republishing it with loving attention. -- The Boston Phoenix, August 1998

[T]his ecstasy, ecstasy in language, in beautiful language, is what carries me through the entire trilogy, not only content with her tricks...not only content with these high-handed fictions but enchanted with her whole poem, not to say enraptured. -- Hayden Carruth, The Hudson Review

About the Author

H.D. (1886-1961) (the pen name of Hilda Doolittle) was born in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA in 1886. A major twentieth century poet with “an ear more subtle than Pound’s, Moore’s, or Yeats’s” as Marie Ponsot writes, she was the author of several volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, and memoirs. She is perhaps one of the best-known and prolific women poets of the Modernist era. Bryher Ellerman was a novelist and H.D.’s wealthy companion. She financed H.D.’s therapy with Freud.

Aliki Barnstone’s translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. An editor and critic, she lives in Las Vegas and teaches at UNLV.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (September 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811213994
• ISBN-13: 978-0811213998
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Portuguese

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Violence Drove Me Inward, June 1, 2001

By 

Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trilogy (Paperback)

Poems of angels and gems and fragrance and stars, all written on the downward slope of WWII. H.D. praises the life that survives, the mythic returns of Amen-Ra and Christ, which is also the first budding of spring. London joins in these poems with Karnak and St. John's second city, Paradise--a resurrection of "our earth before Adam," that "grain or seed/opened like a flower." Angels and Magi bring their usual good news, but the last word belongs to Mary Magdalene and the goddesses behind her, shifting from Isis to Venus to H.D. herself. The thick web of allusions reads at times like a parody of Modernist excess, but the impulse behind them (and these were written quickly, after a long dry spell) is more inspired than erudite. H.D. improvised a religion of her own that enfolded the War like a shell, tranforming its destruction to a promise of new life. "Trilogy" is a quiet testament to her faith in writing as redemption, the poet as witness and priest.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Counterpoint to Eliot's Four Quartets, January 18, 2005

By 

P. Schumacher (atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels, The Flowering of the Rod (Paperback)

H.D.'s "Trilogy" was written about the same time as Eliot's "Four Quartets."

It's a shame H.D.'s war-poem/philosopy-poem isn't as well known as Eliot's.

Eliot deals with time and timelessness--or the eternal within time--and while his verse is very seductive and beautifully interweaves the abstract and the concrete, it merely points to sublimity, never really reaches it.

H.D.'s "Trilogy," really reaches it. There are many many epiphanies made concrete, and her very simple but shattering verse actually takes you to them.

This is a marvelously fluent poem. Yes, there are allusions, but they are simple and bonus, rather than essential.

It is one of those poems that is quite clear immediately, yet repays reading after reading.

It's a pity so few current poets write with such depth and breadth--to say nothing of such passion.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HD's Masterpiece, February 28, 2009

By 

Ger Agrey-thatcher - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels, The Flowering of the Rod (Paperback)

This is one of the classics of the 20th century; it is her most beautiful and mature work.