ABSTRACT
H.D. and Duncan both write of their influences as "initiations," H.D. calling those figures who have most affected her life and work (Sigmund Freud and Ezra Pound among them) "initiators" to whom she would return "the debt lowe" in "some literary form": her "homages," Tribute to Freud (1974 [1956]) and End to Torment (1979).3 While it is the case that some of H.D.'s literary homages contain a degree of the "anxiety" Harold Bloom has attributed to the influence relationship - perhaps none more so than End to Torment, her Pound homage - she is nevertheless at pains to negotiate an enabling, empowering and positive relationship between herself and her "initiator." Duncan appears to see even less that is problematic in the influence relationship, at times in his career gleefully tabulating lists of poets he would "emulate, imitate, reconstrue, approximate, duplicate" (1960b: 406). He even suggests that the "initiate" reader must show "obedience" in coming "under the orders of meanings and inner structures he must follow" (1 968e: 108). Apparently, in this paradigm other poets are the source of gifts for the struggling poet, who owes a debt of gratitude shown in his or her "obedience" to the tradition from which he or she has learned.
