ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that H.D.’s metaphysical inclinations, especially those dealing with the feminine, draw her philosophy closer to Jung’s than to Freud’s, and with these notions working their way into her poetic style, she in fact gives shape to a Jungian poetics, which, ironically, emerged from her relationship with Freud. I shall argue that H.D. adopts the Jungian notions that the mind is a womb for creation, along with the belief in a similar collective unconscious, which hides a set of primordial images (like Jung’s archetypes, more or less). What is striking about H.D.’s work is her use of these concepts for revisionist purposes through her poetry, where, as poet–priestess she seeks to call for a “re-visionary” perception of patriarchy. H.D. performs what Arthur Rimbaud would have called an “alchemy of the word”, and reshapes the way her poetics can be modulated by Jung’s psychological discourse, specifically his use of alchemical texts as metaphors for transformation. In H.D.’s case, verbal alchemy becomes a metaphor for poetry since the poet regards the latter as a “crucible”, a medium of transformation in Trilogy.
