Beyond Man and Woman: The Transcendental Realm of Re-Visions in H.D.’s Trilogy

Abstract

H.D.’s Trilogy has long been studied along the waves of feminism, and many readings of Trilogy lean toward an androgynous or feminist reading. The speaker’s quest through The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels, to the final The Flowering of the Rod have been read as the speaker’s movement from the masculine to the feminine, celebrating either the androgynous or the feminine. The Walls Do Not Fall is mostly associated with the masculine, while Tribute to the Angels and The Flowering of the Rod are considered to move away from these phallocentric myths and attempt a feminist re-telling of these myths, culminating in the birth of a feminine self and tradition. While I do not intend to counter a feminist reading of the text, here I suggest a different direction of reading the feminine quest toward resurrection in Trilogy. H.D. does not simply attempt to replace the phallocentric tradition with a feminine one, but envisions a transcendental realm of consciousness where the masculine and the feminine are able to re-member and re-vision each other. The first part of this paper examines H.D.’s notions of consciousness outlined in Notes on Thought and Vision in order to fully interpret the speaker’s awakening through the process of “worm-cycle” in The Walls Do Not Fall. This realm of consciousness is not necessarily masculine or feminine, showing how H.D. moves away from dualistic categories of thought. Next, the indecipherable feminine in Tribute to the Angels will be explored in contrast to the scribes of phallocentric tradition. The final part of the paper traces the twice-told encounter between Kaspar and Mary in The Flowering of the Rod, delineating how the masculine and the feminine re-member and re-vision each other in the realm of over-conscious mind, bringing forth transcendental resurrection.