Imaging the crone-muse: A contemporary archetypal reading of H.D.'s poetry

Sandra Lincoln Sullivan, Purdue University

Abstract

H.D.'s revisions of patriarchal mythology, namely her delineations of an originary "goddess" figure, have long been of interest to feminist critics. This dissertation extends such scholarship in two primary ways. On one hand, it considers the "goddess" or "goddess-muse" that appears throughout H.D.'s work not primarily as maiden or mother, but as "crone." On the other hand, it takes a primarily psychological (rather than biographical or cultural) approach to the study of H.D.'s "goddess-crone-muse." The crone, in feminist terms, is the wise woman, the giver of vision and prophecy. She therefore is a more appropriate embodiment of a woman writer's muse than either the maiden or the mother. However, as is frequently illustrated in mythological expressions of the "triple goddess" (maiden, mother, and crone), the crone is not necessarily old. She is continuous with, and often doubles as, the maiden and mother. This deliteralized understanding of H.D.'s goddess-crone-muse is in keeping with the dissertation's application of archetypal psychology (one manifestation of contemporary post-Jungian thought) to its textual critique. Archetypal psychology understands "image" in a deliteralized sense; as the goddess-crone-muse of H.D.'s poetry is "imaginal," so too is she deliteralized. While manifesting most clearly in anthropomorphic figures, at the deepest levels she is force, mood, and perspective. The body of the dissertation examines the evolutions of H.D.'s goddess-crone-muse throughout the imagist and early 1920's poetry, the 1930's and World War II poetry, and the late poetry of 1952-1961. The imagist and 1920's poetry is examined in terms of how H.D. "personified" her crone-muse externally, sensing and expressing her in the physical cosmos. The war poetry and the late poetry, meanwhile, are considered in terms of the never-ending process of "soul-making," archetypal psychology's revision of the Jungian Individuation paradigm. In her 1930's and 1940's work, H.D. "personified" her crone-muse internally, descending to her in anima, or "soul." In the late work, subsequently, in reclaiming an external "reality" that is yet imbued with soul, H.D.--herself now a crone--finds her muse, most profoundly, in her own historical and imaginal "self."

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Flory, Purdue University.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature|American literature

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