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What began in 1959 as a simple homage to the modernist poet H.D. developed into an expansive and unique quest to arrive at a poetics that would fuel Duncans great work in the 1970s. A meditation on both the roots of modernism and its manifestation in the work of H.D., Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, Edith Sitwell, and many others, Duncans wide-ranging book is especially notable for its illumination of the role women played in creation of literary modernism. Until now, The H.D. Book existed only in mostly out-of-print little magazines in which its chapters first appeared. Now, for the first time published in its entirety, as its author intended, this monumental work - at once an encyclopedia of modernism, a reinterpretation of its key players and texts, and a record of Duncans quest toward a new poetics - is at last complete and available to a wide audience.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Book One: Beginnings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Eros
Chapter 4 Palimpsest
Chapter 5 Occult Matters
Chapter 6 Rites of Participation
Book Two: Nights and Days
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Appendix 1: Preliminary Notes Toward Book 3 of The H.D. Book
Appendix 2: Composition and Publication History of The H.D. Book
Appendix 3: A List of Works Cited by Robert Duncan in The H.D. Book
Credits
Index
About the author
Robert Duncan (1919-1988) was born in Oakland and spent most of his life in California.
Michael Boughn is a poet, scholar, and fiction writer.
Victor Coleman was an editor of many books of poetry.
Summary
A meditation on both the roots of modernism and its manifestation in the work of H D, Ezra Pound, D H Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, Edith Sitwell, and many others. It is especially notable for its illumination of the role women played in creation of literary modernism.
Additional text
“The belated publication of The H.D. Book will, one hopes, lead more readers to her haunting, resonant later work and also convince more readers to make the leap into Robert Duncan's demanding but gorgeous word-music. Someday, some century even, he and his peers in the Bay Area Renaissance . . . will be recognized as the greatest and most rewarding American poets of their era.”
Report
"Into this eldritch tapestry Duncan weaves patches of poetic autobiography, strands of family history and reflections on his intellectual development." - The Nation
