"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."
As far as Hilda Doolittle's work goes, Oread was a personal favourite of mine when I read it. Being that much of H.D.'s work is based off of Greek mythology, felt that in reading it (before doing any research whatsoever) I felt that it had a great connection to the nymphs and their tales. After doing said research, I found that I was correct in my thinking. I discovered that an Oread (being the title of the piece) is a mountain nymph, a nymph itself being a minor goddess that inhabits either woodlands or seas.
H.D.'s work is an outcry of feminine strength from women whose names are written in history, but whose words were few. H.D. felt that her job was to be the voice of these women and say the things that they weren't able to. Of course, whether or not the women she wrote of were fictional had no bearing on the power behind her writing. She was a voice of even the product of mythos, who in turn were the voice of women as a whole for the past, present, and future.
The nymphs, being considered a minor goddess, seem at first glance to not get much of a word from H.D., but after further reading, one takes note that there is more force in what the nymphs are able to say in these six lines than many people can say in an entire novel. They are given the power of the forest they reign over, washing the masses over with evergreen and woodland fern. In these few words, they are given the power to knock down even the seemingly more powerful hunter and huntress who would be within the confines of their trees. With this power seems to read the chaos of the seas being utilized by the serene woods.
I thought an interesting take on this poem was the whole ertoic side of it. When I first read this poem I would have never gathered that from this but when you figure this out it makes sense. Also the fact that the Oread is mountain nymph over the forest and seas you start to make the connection between the two. Its amazing how little you can put into a poem and how much you can pull of it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice the erotic metaphor when I first read "Oread" but it is definitely an interesting way to read the poem that is supported by the text. I like how H.D. tries to bring a feminine perspective to male-dominated classical literature; "Oread" seems to explore the feminine power that exists within nature. From a post-colonial perspective, nature has been the victim of masculine power (felling pine trees, polluting the ocean, etc.) and women have also suffered oppression throughout history. H.D. gives a voice to the mountains and seas and the feminine elements of nature, just as she gives a voice to previously silenced women in classical literature. I am repeatedly delighted by the different levels of meaning, various metaphors, and multiple possible interpretations of the texts that we're reading this semester; "Oread" is no exception!
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