Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Helen is a short poem written by Hilda Doolittle, better known as H.D. that was first published in 1952. H.D. used imagery, allusion, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to relate this poem with the Greek mythological figure of Helen also mentioned in Homer’s Illiad while the main motive of the poem is to highlights the gender prejudice in the social setup that has been observed since the times of the Trojan war and the current times. The other literary work that H.D. related through this poem is To Helen by Edgar Allen Poe which was published in 1845. In the poem, Poe describes a woman known to him as beautiful as Helen of Troy.
Hilda Doolittle used her deep knowledge of Greek mythology and imagery in raising the issue of objectification of women and misogyny.
Helen was the daughter of the god Zeus and the goddess Nemesis. She was the most beautiful girl in Sparta whom everyone praised and desired. However, nobody ever considered her as an independent individual and she was objectified as a beautiful artifact, an object of desire. She was forcibly married to King Menelaus of Sparta, the younger brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While she was not at all happy in this troublesome relationship, she fell in love with Prince Priam of Troy and ran away to Troy with him. This resulted in a war that was fought for more than 10 years. Helen obviously was vilified and she became the object of hatred for Greeks. The poem stresses that lust and desire objectify women and so does hatred. Edgar Allen Poe wrote To Helen while praising a woman who recently died. In this poem too, he explains how beautiful and effective she was. While Hilda took the Greek mythological elements in her poem as imagery, she related this poem to Poe’s ‘To Helen’ by mimicking the tone, variations, and metrical structure. By doing so, she criticizes these precedents and offers a full focus on Helen as an individual, free woman, rather than focusing on those who objectified her. Thus, Hilda Doolittle presented the story of Helen of troy and its gender implications through this poem.
Structure of Helen by H.D.
It is an 18 lines poem composed in three stanzas. The first one is a quintet (5 lines), the second is a sestet (6 lines), and the third one is a septet (7 lines). These lines are written in free verse with no rhyming scheme and sporadic end rhyming. The narrator of the poem is unknown, though we may assume that Hilda Doolittle herself is the narrator who is talking of Helen of Troy. The title Helen itself works as an extended metaphor to illustrate the way culture, history, and myth have treated, and continue to treat, women. This strong relationship with the Ancients gives an idea to the reader that despite all the modernism and development, human society is suffering from the same ills since then. The very first line “All Greece Hates” is Hyperbole. H.D. uses Simile to express the beauty of Helen and compares the glow of her face to “the luster as of olives.” Along with that, H.D. used Allegory, Imagery, and Allusion to Greek mythology and Homer’s Illiad,
Summary of Helen by H.D.
Stanza 1
“All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the luster of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.”
The main idea of this poem is to express the extensive hate Greek people felt for Helen during her time. That hatred gave way to one of the most talked about mythical wars of Troy that destroyed such a great country and caused the death of many seemingly invincible war heroes including Hector. However, that was not the case at the beginning when Helen was recognized as the most beautiful woman in the world. She was the daughter of gods and took birth as a result of godly love. In her days of youth, she was said to be the most beautiful woman alive, and skillful men of power and fame struggled and competed to get her hand in marriage. But then, this excessive obsession turned into immense hatred.
The poet begins by expressing this all-encompassing hatred towards Helen. Everyone in Greece now hates those beautiful still eyes set on her lotus-white face. H.D. mentioned white twice in the stanza to suggest the innocence and purity of Helen who is now an object to be hated, an object that was once most sought after. People not only hate Helen, but they hate her mere existence. They now hate all her body and embodiments that were once considered the most valuable assets. They hate the olive-like luster of her skin and her soft white hands are despised. They even hate the ground on which she stands (and that’s why Troy was attacked and destroyed).
Stanza 2:
“All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.”
H.D. again begins the second stanza with Hyperbole while explaining the immense hatred of Greek people against Helen.
The poet says that all Greeks “revile” Helen’s smiling face, they do not want her to be happy, they aspire for her misery and are disgusted by her happiness. Their hatred is so deep that the smiling face for which Greeks were ready to die so disgusts them now that they wish for her unhappiness. Furthermore, they not only wish her misery in present but they do not wish her to be happy by remembering the glorious past days when she was the candy in everyone’s eyes. They consider the affection they had showered on Helen as ‘past ills.’
Stanza 3:
“Greece sees unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.”
The poet expresses the extent of change in the perspective of the Greeks. Helen was God’s own daughter and she was the most beautiful and most loved but now Greeks are unmoved by the sight of her. The poet suggests how important Helen was to the Greeks and now how much they hate her and this hatred is only because she chose to be with the man whom she loved and not with the man who kept her without her consent. Helen experienced the best of life that one could have as she was the daughter of godly love but then she was objectified as an object of obsession by men to be acquired. A man whom she never liked acquired her against her own wish and when she broke free, she was again objectified as an object of immense hatred. She still has those beautiful ‘cool feet’ and ‘slenderest knees’ that the men could die for but now they hate her so much that they can love her again only if she is dead, lying on her ‘funereal cypresses.” Basically, the poet suggests that people never considered her living. When they used to love her in past, they loved her as an object of lust, obsession, and sexual fantasy to be acquired, as if she has no soul or individuality. But then she proved to be living by her act of choosing to be with the man she loved. But men couldn’t love her alive and thus, they can only love her again if she dies again.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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