The Struggle of Hilda Doolittle to Exist as She Wants to Exist

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 561 - 571, 30.12.2018

Emel Zorluoglu

Abstract

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), better known by her initials H.D., for the greater part of her prolific life, was concerned about her own life story. She was criticized for repeatedly writing about her own life and pictured as a prisoner of autobiography. However, H.D. was not writing a pure auto- biography. When her prose is analysed, it is clear that she preferred to write roman à clef (A French term meaning ‘novel with a key’, refering to fictional works in which public figures and events are disguised behind a fictional screen, Boyde 2009, 156) rather than autobiography. To understand what was missing in autobiography proper and what parchment H.D.’s modernist roman à clef was written on, I will primarily discuss how autobiography proper has been gendered in Western culture and how this genre is treated within H.D.’s modernist coterie. H.D.’s selection of the roman à clef as a genre did not spring from a strange desire to write her life, but rather, was a deliberate choice serving her own purposes. H.D. used roman à clef ‘therapeutically’, as a ‘passive’ measure to create a powerful voice. I will illustrate my thesis by juxtaposing relevant passages in her romans à clef:Asphodel, The Paint it Today and Hermione, as well as contextualizing it by using the psychoanalytic works of Nancy Chodorow on identity formation to argue that women needed a new form of expression

Keywords

H.D., Autobiography, Roman à clef, Identity, Western Culture

Hilda Doolittle’ın İstediği Gibi Varolma Mücadelesi

Abstract

H.D. kısaltması ile daha iyi tanınan Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961) hayatının büyük bölümünde kendi hayat hikâyesini kaleme almaya çalışmıştır. Yazar sürekli kendi hayatını yazmakve özyaşam öyküsünün esareti altında kalmakla suçlanmıştır. Fakat H.D. saf bir özyaşam hikâyesi yazmamaktadır. Yazıları ince- lendiğinde öz yaşam öyküsünün yanı sıra roman à clef yazmayı tercih ettiğini görüyoruz. Öz yaşam öy- küsü yazmaktaki sorunsalları anlamak için batı kültüründe özyaşam yazımı nasıl şekillenmiş ve H.D.’nin kendi çevresinde bu yazı türü nasıl değerlendirilmiştiri ele almamız gerekmektedir. H.D.’nin roman à clef tercihi yalnızca kendi hayatını kalem alma arzusundan çıkmamıştır bu yazı türü elde etmek istediği amaç- lara onu götürecek bir araçtır aynı zamanda. H.D. roman à clef tarzını terapötik bir şekilde kullanarak güçlü bir ses olarak var olmayı başarmıştır. H.D.’nin bu yazım tekniği sayesinde güçlü bir ses oluğu tezini roman à clef tarzında yazdığı Asphodel, Paint it Today ve Hermione yapıtlarından alıntıların analizi ve Nancy Chodorow’un kimlik üzerine psikanalitik teorisiyle açıklamaya çalışılacaktır.

Keywords

H.D., Özyaşam, Roman à clef, Kimlik, Batı Kültürü

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