SHE CONTRASTS WITH HERSELF HIPPOLYTA by H. D.: Summary, Meaning & Analysis
In this poem, H.
In this poem, H. D. channels Hippolyta — the Amazon queen from Greek mythology — as she grapples with her dual identity: the fierce, untamed warrior and the woman drawn toward love or submission. It explores the price of embracing one identity over the other. H. D. reflects her own conflict between independence and desire through Hippolyta's experience.
Tone & mood
The tone is both fierce and introspective—like someone intensely questioning themselves in a quiet space. There's a sense of pride, but also an underlying grief. H. D. maintains a controlled emotional temperature, characteristic of Imagism, yet the tension behind that control is clear. By the end, the poem feels less like a lyrical expression and more like a judgment the speaker is rendering on herself.
Symbols & metaphors
- Hippolyta — The Amazon queen represents complete autonomy — a woman who is independent of men, domestic life, and traditional love. By adopting her as a persona, H. D. delves into the sacrifices required to embody such a woman in a society that continually seeks to confine or control her.
- The hunt / the wild landscape — Open terrain and hunting symbolize freedom, self-direction, and living life on one's own terms. In H. D.'s Imagist language, the landscape isn’t merely decorative — it reflects the psyche. The wild embodies the untainted self.
- Captivity / the girdle — In the Hippolyta myth, Heracles is tasked with retrieving her girdle, which represents both her power and vulnerability. H. D. employs this mythic element to illustrate how desire, love, or societal expectations can diminish a woman's inherent strength.
- The contrast / the split self — The structural device of contrast serves as a symbol. The two Hippolytas aren't enemies; they represent two truths that coexist within the same person. H. D. employs this split to suggest that identity isn't one-dimensional — and that the real essence of life unfolds in the tension between its different parts.
Historical context
H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) wrote her mythological persona poems during the 1910s and 1920s, a time when she was a key player in the Imagist movement along with Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. She often turned to Greek myth, especially the stories of female figures like Helen, Eurydice, and the Amazons, to delve into themes of female autonomy, desire, and artistic identity—topics she found difficult to tackle directly in her cultural context. Her life was marked by a complex bisexuality, a challenging marriage to Aldington, and a long-term partnership with the writer Bryher. The poem about Hippolyta is part of this mythological series and showcases H. D.'s tendency to use ancient women as stand-ins for contemporary psychological struggles. The Amazon queen, who in myth resists male dominance only to face death or marriage depending on the version, served as a fitting lens for H. D.'s main concern: what a woman gives up when she chooses love, and what she forfeits when she turns it down.
FAQ
Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons in Greek mythology, is a fierce warrior whose strength is represented by her magical girdle. H. D. chooses her to highlight the struggle between fierce independence and the vulnerability that arises from being desired or claimed. This tension is at the heart of the poem.
It means Hippolyta is being placed in conflict with her own opposite — the warrior clashing with the woman who experiences love or submission. H. D. isn't comparing Hippolyta to another character; she's dividing one character into two opposing versions and allowing them to confront one another.
Not literally, but certainly in spirit. H. D. often turned to Greek mythology as a lens to reflect on her own life from a distance. The struggle between independence and desire, between the self that thrives alone and the self that loves others, was at the heart of her experiences as a bisexual woman navigating complex relationships.
Imagism was an early 20th-century poetry movement that H. D. played a key role in shaping. Its guidelines are straightforward: use precise, concrete images; eliminate every unnecessary word; steer clear of vague emotional language. In this poem, that translates to conveying feelings through strong, clear images — landscapes, the body, and objects — instead of stating them directly.
No, and that refusal is intentional. H. D. presents both versions of Hippolyta in the frame without declaring one as better than the other. The poem suggests that you can't just pick one self and ignore the other — both exist, and the tension between them defines what it means to be a complete person.
It is part of a series of dramatic monologues and persona poems where H. D. takes on the voices of Greek women — Helen, Eurydice, Circe — to delve into female experience. Throughout these poems, she focuses on women shaped by men's narratives, seeking to provide them with their own rich inner lives.
The Amazons were a group of women who lived and fought without men — a myth that ancient Greeks used to illustrate what femininity was *not*. H. D. reinterprets that myth, viewing Amazon independence not as something monstrous but as a real and valuable way of being that society continues to attempt to undermine.
The language is concise, and the mythological references provide insight, but the main emotional situation is clear: someone is caught between two sides of themselves. Once you understand Hippolyta's identity, the poem becomes much more accessible. H. D.'s Imagist style keeps the text tight—every line has a purpose.