The Sword Went Out to Sea
(Synthesis of a Dream), by Delia Alton
"Readers of this book will want to take advantage of the editors' detailed summaries of the novel's characters—including 'keys' to surrogate/conflated characters (such as H.D.'s use of her sometime nom de plume, Delia Alton, as both author and protagonist of this novel) and H.D.'s use of dream and symbolism. Valuable for modernists; required reading for H.D. scholars."—Choice
"Engages many important critical questions: the place of the occult in modernism, women writers' response to war, the historical and biographical contexts of H.D.' s late writing. The editors give a forceful presentation of the novel’s significance.”—Eileen Gregory, University of Dallas
“A haunting novel of spiritual duress and survival, it remains eerily relevant today.”—Donna Hollenberg, University of Connecticut
Never before published, The Sword Went Out to Sea is the first book in H.D. prose trilogy that continues with White Rose and the Red and concludes with The Mystery. This complex, semi-autobiographical novel combines H.D.'s interest in the occult and experiences during the Blitz, and sheds light on the aesthetics and origins of literary modernism.
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961), wrote many of her novels under the pseudonym Delia Alton. Cynthia Hogue, Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University, is author of five collections of poetry and coeditor of Innovative Women Poets: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Interviews. Julie Vandivere, is the director of gender and women’s studies and associate professor of English at Bloomsburg University.
