Hilda & Freud

Hilda & Freud – collected words

 

This is a project for a performance based on Hilda Doolittle's analysis with Freud, based on her book, Tribute to Freud, and other books and letters to be presented at the Freud Museum in November 2013.
 

HD and her tribute to Freud

 

Hilda Dolittle  (1886-1961), poet, writer and essayist, was born in Pennsilvania USA. At the age of 25 she moved to London and from then on she engaged herself in the literary scene and was an important figure in the imagist movement, notorious for their experiments with language. Doolittle was particularly close to Erza Pound, who coined her pen-name "HD".  Her libertarian and tumultuous love life, associated with an acute and melancholic sensibility led her to seek various analyses until she ended up in Freud's couch.

In March 1933, she disembarked in Vienna, checked into a hotel for a period of analysis comprised of one daily session everyday of the week and thus embarked on her "great journey" with Sigmund Freud, “blameless physician”.  She kept a diary of her analytical experience, in which she wrote down her dreams, associations, day-dreams, as well as the Professor’s interventions. She called  this piece "Advent" , and it is an  intense and highly emotional testimony. She was 47 and Freud 77 when their relationship began,  at first of an analytical nature, then as a life-long friendship which lasted until Freud's death in 1939.

In 1944, HD rewrote her analytical experience in the format of short chapters, in a poetic prose which mingles dreams, reality, and imagination. This new narrative - Written on the Wall - reinterprets her analysis as an amorous tribute to Freud. In it she urns an hallucinatory and enigmatic experience into the pivot of her analysis and let's us see Freud as a " curator in a vast archeological museum", which is, at the same time, his consulting room and the unconscious. Sustained on her love for Freud, HD's dreams, phantasies, and affective themes get mixed up with Egyptian and Greek gods. Both texts form the book "Tribute to Freud", which constitutes today one of the most important testimonies regarding psychoanalysis as practiced by its founder.

Tribute to Freud in London

 

The book was first published as such only in 1984. The first part, Written on the wall, came out by Pantheon in 1956. Then, in 1974, it is published together with Advent, by D.R. Godine  in 1984 by New Directions.

 

Nearly thirty years later it seems important to us to bring to light again this beautiful homage, written by a poet, who leads us to the functioning of the unconscious as well as to Freud as an analyst.

 

HD's analysis took place at the rise of the nazi movement in Austria, and HD does not leave unnoticed Freud's and her concerns about its consequences. HD who had lost a brother in WWI (whose death caused her father's death) - can already foresee the horrors coming up and fears for Freud' s safety. On his part, he cannot hide his fears for the future of his grandchildren. We all know the outcome of this story - Freud's exile in London and the warmth with which he was received  by the British people, till he could finally settle at the beautiful 20 Maresfield Gardens.

 

To do a performance in the house that was "his last address in this planet", about this particular analysis which took place in such somber times will not only be a double tribute to Freud but also a truly emotional experience to those who know about and benefit from his revolutionaries discoveries.

 

The Performance

 

Our idea is to perform a visit by HD to Freud's house shortly after his death in which she will recall her analysis in 1933. It will be a monologue for 20 people only who will follow the actress playing HD through some parts of the the ground of the Freud Museum, e.g., the lobby, the dining room, the loggia, and finally Freud's consulting room, observing the limits required by the Museum. A musician, placed at the mezzanine, will perform the sound track, live. The director will conduct the public from one room to another and will make sure that the Museum's rules are followed. The performance will last from 50-60 minutes.

 

Proposition     

 

Giving the immense interest this idea has raised among colleagues to who we have mentioned this project in England and Brazil, we will do five presentations: from the 12th till 17nd, November 2013, at 7 pm.