The Butterfly Hatch

Some of H.D.'s most oft-quoted lines have to do with the meaning and value of words; they are conditioned to hatch butterflies. Yet rather than seeking merely to understand how H.D. represented the meaning and value of words, this volume uses 'the butterfly hatch' as a metaphor for thinking more broadly about the capacity of literary experience to hatch transformed persons - 'butterflies' in quest of wisdom. This book reads H.D.'s autobiographical prose and recently published work of the 1940s for its ability to offer new insights into such pertinent and interconnected areas as literary contexts, imagination, and personal and social transformation. The author uncanonically seats her in conversation with the neglected literary theorist, Louise Rosenblatt. This book synthesizes the work of H.D. and Rosenblatt to create an emergent personalist theory of literary experience in the quest for wisdom. Vytniorgu argues that university English studies must incorporate critical and pedagogical vantages which open a window on wisdom as well as knowledge.