Repairing the M(other) and the Self Through the Creation of Art: Reading Hilda Doolittle’s HERmione in parallel with Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges through Kleinian Lenses

Abstract

Hilda Doolittle, known as H.D., began to write prose fiction to surmount her traumas and see the way ahead again. H.D. composed varied autobiographical prose, among which her Madrigal Cycle Novels; Asphodel, HERmione, Paint it Today, and Bid me To live hold a pivotal place. Within the scope of this article, I will analyse HERmione in conjunction with Ravel’s opera L'Enfant et les Sortilèges which became the main subject of Melanie Klein’s paper on ‘infantile anxiety-situations reflected in a work of art and in the creative impulse’. Reading these two writings in tandem will help to clarify the connections that I draw between Klein’s ‘reparation’ concept and H.D.’s writing. The paper, read before the British Psychoanalytic Society in 1929, both elaborates upon Klein’s analysis regarding art production and introduces the term ‘reparation’ for the first time. Klein starts her analysis with Ravel’s opera, which focuses merely on the destructive fantasies of a six-year-old boy. Throughout the paper, Klein emphasises the significance of the reparation process in the handling of destructive fantasies and reads it within the good and bad mother dichotomy. Reading these two works together will shed insight into how- and why- did H.D. feel compelled to create this particular prose, as well as how similar destructive fantasies affected H.D.’s life and decisions paving the way to her being a writer. HERmione, though composed seven years after Asphodel, is a prelude to Asphodel and tells the story of H.D.’s years in Pennsylvania. This altered chronology indicates that there are emotional reasons for H.D. writing out of chronological order. There may be both editorial and psychoanalytical explanations for her choice to write about her adolescent years, 1906–1911, in particular, after writing on her war trauma and stillbirth, which happened around 1915. In this article, I endeavour not only to explain such explicit choices for a deconstructed chronologic linearity, a prominent feature of modernist forms, within a Kleinian psychoanalytic framework but also to analyse how the writing process contributed to H.D.’s own ‘reparation’ process.

Keywords

• Hilda Doolittle
• Melanie Klein
• Ravel
• L’Enfant et les Sortilèges
• Kleinian psychoanalysis
• Trauma
• reparation

Repairing the M(other) and the Self Through the Creation of Art: Reading Hilda Doolittle’s HERmione in parallel with Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges through Kleinian Lenses

Abstract

Daha çok H.D. olarak tanınan Hilda Doolittle, yaşadığı travmaların üstesinden gelebilmek ve önünü yeniden görebilmek için otobiyografik romanlar yazmaya başlamıştır. H.D. Madrigal Döngü adı verdiği: Asphodel (1921-1922), Paint it Today (1921), HERmione (1927) ve Bid Me to live (1947) romanlarında sürekli olarak yaşadığı tramvaları konu etmiştir. Bu makale kapsamında H.D.’nin HERmione isimli otobiyografik romanıyla Ravel’in L'Enfant et les Sortilèges operasını konu alan Melanie Klein'ın ' bir sanat eserinde ve yaratıcı dürtüde yansıtılan çocukluk anksiyetesi-durumları ' başlıklı makalesi birlikte okunarak, Klein’ın ‘onarım’ kavramı ile H.D.'nin yazıları arasındaki bağlantılar tahlil edilmeye çalışılacaktır. Klein’ın 1929'da İngiliz Psikanaliz Derneği'nde sunduğu bu makalesi, hem Klein'ın sanat üretimine ilişkin analizini detaylandırmakta hem de ilk kez ‘onarım’ terimini okuyucuya tanıtmaktadır. Klein, analizinde yalnızca altı yaşındaki bir çocuğun yıkıcı fantezilerine odaklanan Ravel'in operasını psikanalitik bir analizini kötü ve iyi anne ikilemi çerçevesinde okumuş ve bu durumdan kurtulmada ‘onarım’ sürecinin önemini vurgulamıştır. Bu iki eser paralel bir şekilde okunduğunda operada olduğu gibi H.D.’nin de hisettiği benzer yıkıcı fantezileri bir sanat serine dönüştürebilmesinde onarım sürecinin ne kadar önemli olduğu görülmektedir. HERmione, şuana kadar yapılan çalışmalarda her nekadar preoedipal annenin kitabı olarak yorumlansada bu çalışma H.D.’nin preoedipal anneye dönme ve écriture feminine stratejilerini kullanmayı tercih etmesininin sebebini feminist yazım stratejisi yaratmanın ötesinde Asphodel ve Paint it Today kitaplarında yıpratığı iyi anne imajını tekrardan oluşturma ihtiyacını karşılamak için olduğu savını öne sürmektedir. H.D. yazılarında kronolojiyi alt üst etmesinin yani ilk olarak 1915 civarında yaşadığı savaş ve ölü doğum travmalarını kaleme aldıktan sonra 1906–1911 yılları hakkında yazmayı seçmesinin hem editoryal hem de psikanalitik analizleri Kleincı bir psikanalitik çerçeve içinde tartışılacak ve bu seçinin H.D.’nin kendi benliğindeki ‘onarım’ sürecine katkıları analiz edilecektir.

Keywords

• Hilda Doolittle
• Melanie Klein
• Ravel
• L’Enfant et les Sortilèges
• Kleincı psikanaliz
• Travma
• Onarım Süreci

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