Color Perceptions
The classification of color remains a complex area of inquiry that has concerned philosophers, writers, and scientists throughout history. Is it an inherent characteristic of objects, such as dimensions and form? Is it an illusion, purely subjective and derived from visual experiences?
The experimental modernist writer Hilda Doolittle, known by her initials H.D., believed it was her responsibility to synthesize disparate elements and explore the significance of color through a provocative, challenging, reductive, expansive, and analytical lens. Thus, she interrogated the entire notion of color in poetry. H.D. was dedicated to the ideal of completeness that centuries of Europeans had invested in Ancient Greece.
The poet’s desire for the complete subjugation of color and sensations is paradoxical, as the enchantment of color and objects is essential to her. The poet’s yearning for a “still” and “unmoving” world stems from the inherent violence of objects, a constant threat to her sensitivities heightened by overwhelming sensations. Sea Garden subverts the Romantic notion of nature intervening to assist the beholder’s wounded psyche. The visible universe is too dynamic to observe. Colors haunt H.D. due to their ubiquitous presence. They are unrestricted, capable of changing colors and hues, infringing on other colors, and moving (unless darkness overtakes them).
“Rose harsh rose,
Marred and with stint of petals,
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Meagre flower, thin,
Sparse of leaf…
Can the spice rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?”
Her experience of color and the implied total deprivation of its absence might symbolically depict the domain of the senses. Her works include several instances indicating that she consistently exerted a profound influence by annihilating the senses in form, spirit, intellect, and awareness.
What role does the absence of color perception in literary works play in determining how we think, create, and imagine in a world that relies on color-shifting, configurable matter systems that could change at any moment?
