January 24 is the 24th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 341 days remaining until the end of the year (342 in leap years).

Events[link]

• 41 – Roman Emperor Caligula, known for his eccentricity and cruel despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. The Guard then proclaims Caligula's uncle Claudius as Emperor
• 1438 – The Council of Basel suspends Pope Eugene IV as Prelate of Ethiopia, arrives at Massawa from Goa.
• 1679 – King Charles II of England dissolves the Cavalier Parliament.
• 1742 – Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1817 – Crossing of the Andes: Many soldiers of Juan Gregorio de las Heras were captured during the Action of Picheuta.
• 1835 – Slaves in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, stage a revolt, which is instrumental in ending slavery there 50 years later.
• 1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.
• 1857 – The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first fully-fledged university in south Asia.
• 1859 – Political and state union of Moldavia and Wallachia; Alexandru Ioan Cuza is elected as Domnitor in bouth Principalities.
• 1862 – Bucharest is proclaimed capital of Romania.
• 1878 – The revolutionary Vera Zasulich shoots at Fyodor Trepov, the Governor of Saint Petersburg.
• 1900 – Second Boer War: Boers stop a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmith in the Battle of Spion Kop.
• 1908 – The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
• 1911 – Japanese anarchist Shūsui Kōtoku is hanged for treason in a case now considered a miscarriage of justice.
• 1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.
• 1918 – The Gregorian calendar is introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective February 14(NS)
• 1939 – The deadliest earthquake in Chilean history strikes Chillán.
• 1942 – World War II: The Allies bombard Bangkok, leading Thailand to declare war against the United States and United Kingdom.
• 1943 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.
• 1946 – The United Nations General Assembly passes its first resolution to establish the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.
• 1947 – Greek banker Dimitrios Maximos becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
• 1960 – Algerian War: Some units of European volunteers in Algiers stage an insurrection known as the "barricades week", during which they seize government buildings and clash with local police.
• 1961 – 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.
• 1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
• 1977 – Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, during the Spanish transition to democracy.
• 1978 – Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor onboard, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.
• 1984 – The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.
• 1986 – Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 kilometres (50,600 mi) of Uranus.
• 1990 – Japan launches Hiten, the country's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States.
• 1993 – Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu is assassinated by a car bomb in Ankara.
• 1996 – Polish Premier Józef Oleksy resigns amid charges that he spied for Moscow.
• 2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.
• 2009 – The storm Klaus makes landfall near Bordeaux, France. It subsequently would cause 26 deaths as well as extensive disruptions to public transport and power supplies.
• 2011 – At least 35 died and 180 injured in a bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.

Births[link]

• 76 – Hadrian, Roman Emperor (d. 138)
• 1287 – Richard Aungerville, English bishop (d. 1345)
• 1444 – Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan (d. 1476)
• 1540 – Edmund Campion, English Jesuit (d. 1581)
• 1638 – Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, English poet (d. 1706)
• 1670 – William Congreve, English playwright (d. 1729)
• 1674 – Thomas Tanner, English bishop (d. 1735)
• 1679 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (d. 1754)
• 1705 – Farinelli, Italian castrato (d. 1782)
• 1709 – Dom Bédos de Celles, Benedictine monk best known for being a master pipe organ builder (d. 1779)
• 1712 – King Frederick II of Prussia (d. 1786)
• 1724 – Frances Brooke, English writer (d. 1789)
• 1732 – Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, French playwright (d. 1799)
• 1742 – Anne, Duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn (d. 1808)
• 1746 – King Gustav III of Sweden (d. 1792)
• 1752 – Muzio Clementi, Italian composer (d. 1832)
• 1754 – Andrew Ellicott, American surveyor (d. 1820)
• 1763 – Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron, Russian general (d. 1831)
• 1776 – E.T.A. Hoffmann, German writer (d. 1822)
• 1779 – Tsarina Elizabeth Alexeievna (d. 1826)
• 1848 – Vasily Surikov, Russian painter (d. 1916)
• 1862 – Edith Wharton, American writer (d. 1937)
• 1864 – Marguerite Durand, French suffragette (d. 1936)
• 1872 – Konstantin Bogaevsky, Russian painter (d. 1943)
• 1872 – Ethel Turner, Australian author (d. 1958)
• 1886 – Henry King, American film director (d. 1982)
• 1888 – Vicki Baum, Austrian writer (d. 1960)
• 1888 – Ernst Heinkel, German aircraft designer (d. 1958)
• 1891 – Walter Model, German field marshal (d. 1945)
• 1895 – Eugen Roth, German writer (d. 1976)
• 1898 – Cliff Heathcote, American baseball player (d. 1939)
• 1900 – Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ukrainian-born American geneticist and biologist (d. 1975)
• 1901 – Harry Calder, South African cricketer (d. 1995)
• 1901 – Edward Turner, English motorcycle designer (d. 1973)
• 1902 – E. A. Speiser, American biblical scholar (d. 1965)
• 1905 – J. Howard Marshall, American billionaire (d. 1995)
• 1907 – Maurice Couve de Murville, French politician (d. 1999)
• 1907 – Tuts Washington, American R&B pianist(d. 1984)
• 1909 – Martin Lings, English Islamic scholar (d. 2005)
• 1909 – Ann Todd, English actress (d. 1993)
• 1910 – Doris Haddock, American political activist (d. 2010)
• 1911 – Muir Mathieson, Scottish conductor and composer (d. 1975)
• 1913 – Norman Dello Joio, American composer (d. 2008)
• 1915 – Robert Motherwell, American painter (d. 1991)
• 1916 – Jack Brickhouse, American sports broadcaster (d. 1998)
• 1916 – Rafael Caldera, President of Venezuela (d. 2009)
• 1916 – Arnoldo Foà, Italian actor
• 1917 – Ernest Borgnine, American actor
• 1918 – Oral Roberts, American evangelist (d. 2009)
• 1919 – Coleman Francis, American film director (d. 1973)
• 1920 – Jerry Maren, American actor
• 1922 – Charles Socarides, American psychiatrist (d. 2005)
• 1923 – Vlado Kristl, Croatian painter and filmmaker (d. 2004)
• 1924 – Joe Albany, American jazz pianist
• 1925 – Maria Tallchief, American ballerina
• 1926 – Georges Lautner, French director and screenwriter
• 1927 – Sir Patrick Macnaghten, 11th Baronet, British aristocrat (d. 2007)
• 1928 – Desmond Morris, British anthropologist
• 1928 – Michel Serrault, French actor (d. 2007)
• 1930 – Bernard Matthews, British poultry industry figure (d. 2010)
• 1934 – Stanisław Grochowiak, Polish poet (d. 1976)
• 1934 – Ann Cole, American gospel and R&B singer
• 1935 – Eric Ashton, English rugby league footballer (d. 2008)
• 1936 – William Bogert, American actor
• 1936 – Doug Kershaw, American musician
• 1936 – Bobby Wellins, Scottish jazz saxophonist
• 1939 – Ray Stevens, American musician
• 1941 – Neil Diamond, American singer
• 1941 – Aaron Neville, American singer (Neville Brothers)
• 1942 – Gary Hart, American professional wrestling figure (d. 2008)
• 1943 – Subhash Ghai, Indian film director
• 1943 – Peter Struck, German politician
• 1943 – Sharon Tate, American actress and Manson murder victim (d. 1969)
• 1944 – Klaus Nomi, German singer (d. 1983)
• 1945 – D. Todd Christofferson, American religious figure
• 1945 – John Garamendi, American politician
• 1946 – Michael Ontkean, Canadian actor
• 1946 – Haji, Canadian actress
• 1947 – Michio Kaku, Japanese-born American theoretical physicist
• 1947 – Masashi Ozaki, Japanese golfer
• 1947 – Warren Zevon, American musician (d. 2003)
• 1948 – Michael Des Barres, British actor and rock singer (Power Station, Silverhead, and Detective)
• 1949 – John Belushi, American actor (d. 1982)
• 1950 – Daniel Auteuil, French actor
• 1950 – Gennifer Flowers, American actress, political figure
• 1950 – Benjamin Urrutia, Ecuadorian-born American writer
• 1951 – Yakov Smirnoff, Ukrainian-born American comedian
• 1953 – Tim Stoddard, American baseball player
• 1954 – Jo Gartner, Austrian racing driver (d. 1986)
• 1955 – Jim Montgomery, American swimmer
• 1956 – Hanne Krogh, Norwegian singer (Bobbysocks)
• 1956 – Lounès Matoub, Algerian Berber Kabyle singer (d. 1998)
• 1957 – Mark Eaton, American basketball player
• 1957 – Adrian Edmondson, English comedian
• 1958 – Neil Allen, American baseball player
• 1958 – Jools Holland, English musician (Squeeze)
• 1959 – David Mills, American author
• 1959 – Vic Reeves, English comedian
• 1960 – Rick Leventhal, American journalist
• 1960 – Jack Neo, Singaporean filmmaker & actor
• 1960 – Mária Bajzek Lukács Hungarian Slovene writer, adjunct of the University ELTE
• 1961 – Guido Buchwald, German football player
• 1961 – Nastassja Kinski, German-born actress
• 1961 – Vince Russo, American writer
• 1961 – William Van Dijck, Belgian athlete
• 1962 – Argiris Kambouris, Greek basketball player
• 1963 – Martyn Grimley, English field hockey player
• 1963 – Arnold Vanderlyde, Dutch boxer
• 1965 – Mike Awesome, American professional wrestler (d. 2007)
• 1965 – Carlos Saldanha, Brazilian film director
• 1965 – Pagonis Vakalopoulos, Greek footballer
• 1966 – Jimeoin, Northern Irish comedian
• 1967 – Mark Kozelek, American singer/songwriter (Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon)
• 1967 – Phil LaMarr, American actor,comedian,and voice actor
• 1967 – John Myung, American musician (Dream Theater)
• 1968 – Michael Kiske, German musician (Helloween)
• 1968 – Mary Lou Retton, American gymnast
• 1969 – Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Icelandic actor
• 1970 – Matthew Lillard, American actor
• 1971 – Cory Bailey, American baseball player
• 1971 – Andrea Mackris, American television producer
• 1972 – Naoshi Mizuta, Japanese composer
• 1972 – Daan Schuurmans, Dutch actor
• 1972 – Ulla Werbrouck, Belgian judoka and politician
• 1974 – Adam Dean, American philosopher
• 1974 – Ed Helms, American actor
• 1975 – Isobel Cooper, English singer
• 1975 – Rónald Gómez, Costa Rican footballer
• 1976 – Shae-Lynn Bourne, Canadian ice dancer
• 1976 – Cindy Pieters, Belgian cyclist
• 1976 – Olga Vymetálková, Czech tennis player
• 1977 – Kensuke Kita, Japanese guitarist (Asian Kung-Fu Generation)
• 1979 – Tatyana Ali, American actress and singer
• 1979 – Leandro Desábato, Argentine footballer
• 1979 – Tom Kostopoulos, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1980 – Rocky Boiman, American football player
• 1980 – Nicole Marie Lenz, American actress
• 1980 – Yamandu Costa, Brazilian guitarist and composer
• 1981 – Travis Hanson, American baseball player
• 1981 – Michael Wolf, German ice hockey player
• 1982 – Fiona Xie, Singaporean actress
• 1983 – Diane Birch, American singer/songwriter/pianist
• 1983 – Wyatt Crockett, New Zealand rugby player
• 1983 – Shaun Maloney, Scottish footballer
• 1983 – Scott Speed, American race car driver
• 1984 – Scott Kazmir, American baseball player
• 1984 – Witold Kiełtyka, Polish drummer (Decapitated) (d. 2007)
• 1984 – Paulo Sérgio, Portuguese footballer
• 1986 – Vieirinha, Portuguese footballer
• 1986 – Mischa Barton, English-born American actress
• 1986 – Raviv Ullman, Israeli-born American actor
• 1987 – Luis Suárez, Uruguayan footballer
• 1988 – Jade Ewen, English singer (Sugababes)
• 1989 – Calvin Goldspink, English singer and actor (S Club 8)
• 1989 – Samba Diakité, Malian footballer
• 1989 – Ki Sung-Yueng, South Korean footballer
• 1990 – Mao Abe, Japanese singer-songwriter
• 1995 – Callan McAuliffe, Australian actor
• 1997 – Dylan Riley Snyder, American film, television and theatre actor
• 2012 – Princess Athena of Denmark

Deaths[link]

• 41 – Caligula, Emperor of Rome (b. 12)
• 772 – Pope Stephen III (b. 720)
• 1002 – Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 980)
• 1125 – David IV of Georgia (b. 1073)
• 1366 – Alfonso IV of Aragon (b. 1299)
• 1376 – Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, English military leader
• 1473 – Conrad Paumann, German composer
• 1595 – Ferdinand II of Austria (b. 1529)
• 1626 – Samuel Argall, English adventurer and naval officer (b. 1580)
• 1639 – Georg Jenatsch, Swiss politician (b. 1596)
• 1666 – Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer (b. 1588)
• 1709 – George Rooke, English admiral (b. 1650)
• 1769 – François de Chevert, French general (b. 1695)
• 1856 – Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir, Polish Hasidic leader (b. 1775)
• 1877 – Johann Christian Poggendorff, German physicist (b. 1796)
• 1882 – Levi Boone, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1808)
• 1883 – Friedrich von Flotow, German composer (b. 1812)
• 1895 – Lord Randolph Churchill, British politician (b. 1849)
• 1911 – David Graham Phillips, American journalist and novelist (b. 1867)
• 1918 – George Arthur Crump, Founder of the Pine Valley Golf Club in Clementon NJ (b. 1871)
• 1920 – Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1884)
• 1924 – Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (b. 1894)
• 1932 – Alfred Yarrow, English shipbuilder (b. 1842)
• 1936 – Harry T. Morey, American actor (b. 1873)
• 1939 – Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician and nutritionist (b. 1867)
• 1943 – John Burns, English politician (b. 1858)
• 1948 – Maria Mandel, Camp Leader at Auschwitz (b. 1912)
• 1955 – Ira Hayes, American World War II hero (b. 1923)
• 1960 – Arthur Murray Chisholm, author of Western fiction (b. 1872)
• 1960 – Edwin Fischer, Swiss pianist and conductor (b. 1886)
• 1961 – Alfred Carlton Gilbert, American pole vaulter and inventor (b. 1884)
• 1962 – André Lhote, French painter (b. 1885)
• 1962 – Stanley Lord, captain of the SS Californian the night of the Titanic disaster (b. 1877)
• 1965 – Winston Churchill, soldier, politician, historian, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Nobel laureate (b. 1874)
• 1966 – Homi J. Bhabha, Indian physicist (b. 1909)
• 1970 – Caresse Crosby, American poet (b. 1891)
• 1971 – William Griffith "Bill" Wilson, American co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (b. 1895)
• 1973 – J. Carrol Naish, American actor (b. 1897)
• 1973 – Masao Ohba, world champion Japanese boxer (b. 1949)
• 1975 – Larry Fine, American actor and comedian (b. 1902)
• 1978 – Herta Oberheuser, German doctor (b. 1911)
• 1980 – Lil Dagover, Dutch-born German actress (b. 1887)
• 1982 – Alfredo Ovando Candía, Bolivian president and dictator (b. 1918)
• 1983 – George Cukor, American film director (b. 1899)
• 1986 – L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology (b. 1911)
• 1986 – Flo Hyman, American volleyball player (b. 1954)
• 1986 – Gordon MacRae, American actor and singer (b. 1921)
• 1988 – Werner Fenchel, German mathematician (b. 1905)
• 1989 – Ted Bundy, American serial killer (b. 1946)
• 1989 – George Knudson, Canadian golfer (b. 1937)
• 1990 – Madge Bellamy, American actress (b. 1899)
• 1991 – John M. Kelly, Irish politician and academic (b. 1931)
• 1992 – Ken Darby, American composer, arranger and conductor (b. 1909)
• 1992 – Ricky Ray Rector, American murderer (b. 1950)
• 1993 – Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (b. 1908)
• 1993 – Uğur Mumcu, Turkish journalist and writer (b. 1942)
• 1994 – Yves Navarre, French writer (b. 1940)
• 1998 – Walter D. Edmonds, American author (b. 1903)
• 2000 – Bobby Duncum, Jr., American professional wrestler (b. 1965)
• 2002 – Peter Gzowski, Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter (b. 1934)
• 2002 – Elie Hobeika, Lebanese Forces militia commander (b. 1956)
• 2003 – Gianni Agnelli, Italian auto executive (b. 1921)
• 2004 – Leônidas da Silva, Brazilian footballer (b. 1913)
• 2005 – June Bronhill, Australian singer (b. 1929)
• 2005 – Vladimir Savchenko, Ukrainian writer (b. 1933)
• 2005 – Chalkie White, English rugby union coach (b. 1929)
• 2006 – Schafik Handal, Salvadoran politician (b. 1930)
• 2006 – Fayard Nicholas, American tap dancer, one-half of The Nicholas Brothers (b. 1914)
• 2006 – Chris Penn, American actor (b. 1965)
• 2007 – Krystyna Feldman, Polish actress (b. 1916)
• 2007 – Guadalupe Larriva, Ecuadorian politician (b. 1956)
• 2007 – Emiliano Mercado del Toro, World's oldest military veteran (b. 1891)
• 2008 – Randy Salerno, co-anchor of Chicago's CBS 2 News (b. 1963)
• 2009 – Gérard Blanc, French singer (b. 1947)
• 2009 – Reg Gutteridge, British boxing journalist (b. 1924)
• 2009 – Kay Yow, North Carolina State Univ. women's basketball head coach (b. 1942)
• 2010 – Pernell Roberts, American actor & singer, last surviving star of Bonanza (b. 1928)
• 2011 – Bernd Eichinger, German film producer and director (b. 1949)
• 2011 – Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Indian Musician, Bharat Ratna Laureate (b. 1922)
• 2011 – Gerardo Ortega, Filipino Journalist and Environmentalist (b. 1963)
• 2012 – James Farentino, American actor (b. 1938)

Holidays and observances[link]

• Christian Feast Day:
  • Cadoc (Wales)
  • Francis de Sales
  • January 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Earliest day on which Saturday of Souls can fall, while February 27 (or 28 during Leap Year) is the latest; observed 57 days before Easter. (Eastern Orthodox)
• Feast of Our Lady of Peace (Roman Catholic Church), and its related observances:
  • Feria de Alasitas (La Paz)
• First day of the Sementivae, in honor of Ceres and Terra (Roman Empire)
• Unification Day (Romania)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: January 24

• BBC: On This Day
• The New York Times: On This Day
• On this day in Canada

H.D. (born Hilda Doolittle; September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. The Imagist model was based on the idioms, rhythms and clarity of common speech, and freedom to choose subject matter as the writer saw fit. H.D.'s later writing developed on this aesthetic to incorporate a more gynocentric version of modernism.

H.D. was born in Pennsylvania in 1886, and moved to London in 1911 where her publications earned her a central role within the then emerging Imagism movement. A charismatic figure, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the poet Richard Aldington,^[1] and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. Glenn Hughes, the authority on Imagism, said of her 'her loneliness cries out from her poems. ^[2] She had a deep interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are often used to emote a particular feeling or mood.

She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to understand and express her bisexuality.^[3] H.D. married once, and undertook a number of heterosexual and lesbian relationships. She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus became an icon for both the gay rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays, letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s. This period saw a wave of feminist literature on the gendering of Modernism and psychoanalytical misogyny, by a generation of writers who saw her as an early icon of the feminist movement.^{[4] [5]}

Career[link]

Early life[link]

Hilda Doolittle was born into the Moravian community in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.^[6] Her father, Charles Doolittle, was professor of astronomy at Lehigh University^[7] and her mother, Helen (Wolle), was a Moravian with a strong interest in music. In 1896, Charles Doolittle was appointed Flower Professor of Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and the family moved to a house in Upper Darby, an affluent Philadelphia suburb. She attended Philadelphia's Friends Central High School, at Fifteenth and Race streets, graduating in 1905. In 1901, she met and befriended Ezra Pound, who was to play a major role both in her private life and her emergence as a writer. In 1905, Pound presented her with a sheaf of love poems under the collective title Hilda's Book.^[8]

That year, Doolittle attended Bryn Mawr College^[9] to study Greek literature, but left after only three terms due to poor grades and the excuse of poor health. While at the college, she met the poets Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams. Her first published writings, some stories for children, were published in The Comrade, a Philadelphia Presbyterian Church paper, between 1909 and 1913, mostly under the name Edith Gray. In 1907, she became engaged to Pound. Her father disapproved of Pound,^[10] and by the time her father left for Europe in 1908, the engagement had been called off. Around this time, H.D. started a relationship with a young female art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Frances Josepha Gregg.^[11] After spending part of 1910 living in Greenwich Village, she sailed to Europe with Gregg and Gregg's mother in 1911. In Europe, H.D. began a more serious career as a writer. Her relationship with Gregg cooled, and she met a writing enthusiast named Brigit Patmore with whom she became involved in an affair. Patmore introduced H.D. to another poet, Richard Aldington.

H.D. Imagiste[link]

Soon after arriving in England, H.D. showed Pound some poems she had written. Pound had already begun to meet with other poets at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Soho. He was impressed by the closeness of H.D. poems's to the ideas and principles he had been discussing with Aldington, with whom he had shared plans to reform contemporary poetry through free verse, the tanka and the tightness and conciseness of the haiku, and the removal of all unnecessary verbiage. In summer 1912, the three poets declared themselves the "three original Imagists", and set out their principles as:

1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.^[12][13]

During a meeting with H.D. in a tea room near the British Museum that year, Pound appended the signature H.D. Imagiste to her poetry, creating a label that was to stick to the poet for most of her writing life.^[14] However H.D. told different versions of this story at various times, and during her career published under a variety of pseudonyms.^[15] That same year, Harriet Monroe started her Poetry magazine and asked Pound to act as foreign editor. In October, he submitted three poems each by H.D. and Aldington under the rubric Imagiste. Aldington's poems were in the November issue of Poetry and her poems "Hermes of the Ways," "Orchard," and "Epigram", in the January 1913 issue. Imagism as a movement was launched with H.D. as its prime exponent.

The early models for the Imagist group were from Japan, and H.D. often visited the exclusive Print Room at the British Museum in the company of Richard Aldington and the curator and poet Laurence Binyon in order to examine Nishiki-e prints that incorporated traditional Japanese verse.^[16][17] However, she also derived her way of making poems from her reading of Classical Greek literature and especially of Sappho,^[18] an interest she shared with Aldington and Pound, each of whom produced versions of the Greek poet's work. In 1915, H.D. and Aldington launched the Poets' Translation Series, pamphlets of translations from Greek and Latin classics. H.D. worked on the plays by Euripides, publishing in 1916 a translation of choruses from Iphigeneia at Aulis, in 1919 a translation of choruses from Iphigeneia at Aulis and Hippolytus, an adaptation of Hippolytus called Hippolytus Temporizes (1927), a translation of choruses from The Bacchae and Hecuba (1931), and Euripides' Ion (1937) a loose translation of Ion.^[19]

She continued her association with the group until the final issue of the Some Imagist Poets anthology in 1917. She and Aldington did most of the editorial work on the 1915 anthology. Her work also appeared in Aldington's Imagist Anthology 1930. All of her poetry up to the end of the 1930s was written in an Imagist mode, utilising spare use of language,^[20] and a classical, austere purity.^[21] This style of writing was not without its critics. In a special Imagist issue of The Egoist magazine in May 1915, the poet and critic Harold Monro called H.D.'s early work "petty poetry", denoting "either poverty of imagination or needlessly excessive restraint".^[22]

Oread, one of her earliest and best-known poems, which was first published in the 1915 anthology, illustrates this early style:

<poem>

    Whirl up, sea—
    Whirl your pointed pines.
    Splash your great pines
    On our rocks.
    Hurl your green over us—
    Cover us with your pools of fir.[23]

</poem>

World War I and after[link]

44 Mecklenburgh Square

Before World War I, H.D. married Aldington in 1913; however, their first and only child, a daughter, was stillborn in 1915. Aldington enlisted in the army. The couple became estranged and Aldington reportedly took a mistress in 1917. H.D. became involved in a close but platonic relationship with D. H. Lawrence. In 1916, her first book, Sea Garden, was published and she was appointed assistant editor of The Egoist, replacing her husband. In 1918, her brother Gilbert was killed in action, and that March she moved into a cottage in Cornwall with the composer Cecil Gray, a friend of Lawrence's. She became pregnant with Gray's child,^[24] however, by the time she realised she was expecting, the relationship had cooled and Gray had returned to live in London.^[25] When Aldington returned from active service he was noticeably traumatised, and he and H.D. later separated.

Close to the end of the war, H.D. met the wealthy English novelist Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman). They lived together until 1946, and although both took numerous other partners, Bryher remained her lover for the rest of H.D.'s life. In 1919, H.D. came close to death when she gave birth to her daughter Frances Perdita Aldington—although the father was not Aldington, but Gray—while suffering from war influenza.^[26] During this time, her father, who had never recovered from Gilbert's death, died. In 1919, H.D. wrote one of her few known statements on poetics,^[27] Notes on Thought and Vision, which was unpublished until 1982.^[28] In this, she speaks of poets (herself included) as belonging to a kind of elite group of visionaries with the power to 'turn the whole tide of human thought'.

H.D. and Aldington attempted to salvage their relationship during this time, but he was suffering from the effects of his participation in the war, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder, and they became estranged, living completely separate lives, but not divorcing until 1938. They remained friends, however, for the rest of their lives. From 1920, her relationship with Bryher became closer and the pair travelled in Egypt, Greece and the United States before eventually settling in Switzerland. Bryher entered a marriage of convenience in 1921 with Robert McAlmon, which allowed him to fund his publishing ventures in Paris by utilising some of her personal wealth for his Contact Press.^[29] Both Bryher and H.D. slept with McAlmon during this time. Bryher and McAlmon divorced in 1927.^[30]

Novels, films and psychoanalysis[link]

In the early 1920s, H.D. started to write three projected cycles of novels.^[31] The first of these, Magna Graeca, consists of Palimpsest (1921) and Hedylus (1928). The Magna Graeca novels use their classical settings to explore the poetic vocation, particularly as it applies to women in a patriarchal literary culture. The Madrigal cycle consists of HERmione, Bid Me to Live, Paint It Today and Asphodel, and is largely autobiographical, dealing with the development of the female artist and the conflict between heterosexual and lesbian desire. Kora and Ka and The Usual Star, two novellas from the Borderline cycle, were published in 1933. In this period, she also wrote Pilate's Wife, Mira-Mare, and Nights.

During this period her mother had died and Bryher had divorced her husband, only to marry H.D.'s new male lover, Kenneth Macpherson. H.D., Bryher, and Macpherson lived together and traveled through Europe as what the poet and critic Barbara Guest termed in her biography of H.D. as a 'menagerie of three'.^[32] Bryher and Macpherson adopted H.D.'s daughter, Perdita.^[6] In 1928, H.D. became pregnant but chose to abort the pregnancy in November. Bryher and Macpherson set up the magazine Close Up (to which H.D. regularly contributed) as a medium for intellectual discussion of cinema. In 1927, the small independent film cinema group POOL or Pool Group was established (largely funded with Bryher's inheritance) and was managed by all three.^[33] Only one POOL film survives in its entirety, Borderline (1930), which featured H.D. and Paul Robeson in the lead roles. In common with the Borderline novellas, the film explores extreme psychic states and their relationship to surface reality. As well as acting in this film, H.D. wrote an explanatory pamphlet to accompany it, a piece later published in Close Up.^[34]

In 1933, H.D. traveled to Vienna to undergo analysis with Sigmund Freud.^[35] She had an interest in Freud's theories as far back as 1909, when she read some of his works in the original German.^[36] H.D. was referred by Bryher's psychoanalyst due to her increasing paranoia about the rise of Adolf Hitler which indicated another world war, an idea that H.D. found intolerable. The Great War (World War I) had left her feeling shattered. She had lost her brother in action, while her husband suffered effects of combat experiences, and she believed that the onslaught of the war indirectly caused the death of her child with Aldington: she believed it was her shock at hearing the news about the RMS Lusitania that directly caused her miscarriage.^[37] Writing on the Wall, her memoir about this psychoanalysis, was written concurrently with Trilogy and published in 1944; in 1956 it was republished with Advent, a journal of the analysis, under the title Tribute to Freud.^[38]

World War II and after[link]

H.D. and Bryher spent the duration of World War II in London. During this time, H.D. wrote The Gift, a memoir of her childhood and family life in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which reflects on people and events in her background that helped shape her as a writer.^[39] The Gift was eventually published in 1960 and 1982.^[40] She also wrote Trilogy, published as The Walls do not Fall (1944), Tribute to the Angels (1945) and The Flowering of the Rod (1946). The opening lines of The Walls do not Fall clearly and immediately signal H.D.'s break with her earlier work:

<poem>

    An incident here and there,
    and rails gone (for guns)
    from your (and my) old town square.[41]

</poem>

After the war, H.D. and Bryher no longer lived together, but remained in contact. H.D. moved to Switzerland where, in the spring of 1946, she suffered a severe mental breakdown which resulted in her staying in a clinic until the autumn of that year. Apart from a number of trips to the States, H.D. spent the rest of her life in Switzerland. In the late 1950s, she underwent more treatment, this time with the psychoanalyst Erich Heydt.^[42] At Heydt's prompting, she wrote End to Torment, a memoir of her relationship with Pound, who allowed the poems of Hilda's Book to be included when the book was published. Doolittle was one of the leading figures in the bohemian culture of London in the early decades of the century. Her later poetry explores traditional epic themes, such as violence and war, from a feminist perspective. H.D. was the first woman to be granted the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal.^[9][9]

Later life and death[link]

During the 1950s, H.D. wrote a considerable amount of poetry, most notably Helen in Egypt (written between 1952–54), an examination from a feminist point of view of a male-centred epic poetry. H.D. used Euripides's play Helen as a starting point for a reinterpretation of the basis of the Trojan War and, by extension, of war itself.^[43] This work has been seen by some critics, including Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas, as H.D.'s response to Pound's Cantos, a work she greatly admired. Other poems from this period include Sagesse, Winter Love and Hermetic Definition. These three were published posthumously with the collective title Hermetic Definition (1972). The poem Hermetic Definition takes as its starting points her love for a man 30 years her junior and the line 'so slow is the rose to open' from Pound's Canto 106. Sagesse, written in bed after H.D. had broken her hip in a fall, serves as a kind of coda to Trilogy, being partly written in the voice of a young female Blitz survivor who finds herself living in fear of the atom bomb. Winter Love was written together with End to Torment and uses as narrator the Homeric figure of Penelope to restate the material of the memoir in poetic form. At one time, H.D. considered appending this poem as a coda to Helen in Egypt.^[44]

H.D. visited the United States in 1960 to collect an American Academy of Arts and Letters medal.^[45] Returning to Switzerland, she suffered a stroke in July 1961 and died a couple of months later in the Klinik Hirslanden in Zürich.^[46] Her ashes were returned to Bethlehem, and were buried in the family plot in the Nisky Hill Cemetery on October 28, 1961. Her epitaph consists of the following lines from her early poem "Let Zeus Record":

<poem>

    So you may say,
    Greek flower; Greek ecstasy
    reclaims forever
    one who died
    following intricate song's
    lost measure.[47]

</poem>

Legacy[link]

The rediscovery of H.D. began in the 1970s, and coincided with the emergence of a feminist criticism that found much to admire in the questioning of gender roles typical of her writings.^[48][5] Specifically, those critics who were challenging the standard view of English-language literary modernism based on the work of such male writers as Pound, Eliot and James Joyce, were able to restore H.D. to a more significant position in the history of that movement. Her writings have served as a model for a number of more recent women poets working in the modernist tradition; including the New York School poet Barbara Guest, the Anglo-American poet Denise Levertov, the Black Mountain poet Hilda Morley and the Language poet Susan Howe.^[49] Her influence is not limited to female poets, and many male writers, including Robert Duncan^[50] and Robert Creeley,^[51] have acknowledged their debt.

Selected works[link]

Poems[link]

Poetry collections[link]

• Sea Garden (1916)
• The God (1917)
• Translations (1920)
• Hymen (1921)
• Heliodora and Other Poems (1924)
• Hippolytus Temporizes (1927)
• Red Roses for Bronze (1932)
• The Walls Do Not Fall (1944)
• Tribute to the Angels (1945)
• Trilogy (1946)
• Flowering of the Rod (1946)
• By Avon River (1949)
• Helen in Egypt, New Directions (1961)
• Hermetic Definition, New Directions (1972)

Prose[link]

• Notes on Thought and Vision (1919)
• Paint it Today (written 1921, published 1992)
• Asphodel (written 1921-22, published 1992)
• Palimpsest (1926)
• Kora and Ka (1930)
• Nights (1935)
• The Hedgehog (1936)
• Tribute to Freud (1956)
• Bid Me to Live (1960)
• End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound, New Directions (1979)
• HERmione, New Directions (1981)
• The Gift, New Directions (1982)
• Majic Ring (written 1943-44, published 2009)
• The Sword Went Out to Sea (written 1946-47, published 2007)
• White Rose and the Red (written 1948, published 2009)
• The Mystery (written 1948-51, published 2009)

Notes[link]