Analysis of Evadne

Hilda Doolittle 1886 (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) – 1961 (Zurich)



I first tasted under Apollo's lips,
love and love sweetness,
I, Evadne;
my hair is made of crisp violets
or hyacinth which the wind combs back
across some rock shelf;
I, Evadne,
was made of the god of light.

His hair was crisp to my mouth,
as the flower of the crocus,
across my cheek,
cool as the silver-cress
on Erotos bank;
between my chin and throat,
his mouth slipped over and over.

Still between my arm and shoulder,
I feel the brush of his hair,
and my hands keep the gold they took,
as they wandered over and over,
that great arm-full of yellow flowers.


Scheme xaBxxxBx xaxxxxc cxxcx
Poetic Form Tetractys  (35%)
Etheree  (35%)
Metre 1110100101 10110 1010 111111100 11010111 01111 1010 1110111 1111111 10101010 0111 110101 111 011101 11110010 10111010 1101111 01110111 111010010 111111010
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 550
Words 108
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 7, 5
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 145
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
110

Hilda Doolittle

Hilda Doolittle was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist, associated with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets, including Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. She published under the pen name H. D. Hilda was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1886, and grew up just outside Philadelphia in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and attended Bryn Mawr College. She moved to London in 1911, where she played a central role within the then-emerging Imagist movement. Young and charismatic, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building 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.  more…

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