Introduction

The early 20th century saw a radical redefinition of the human body in literature, as modernist and futurist movements sought to dismantle traditional representations of physicality. While both F.T. Marinetti and H.D. engaged with the body as a site of artistic experimentation, their approaches diverged profoundly. Marinetti's Futurism celebrated mechanized, fragmented flesh, while H.D.'s Imagist poetry centered organic, sensual embodiment. This article explores how their contrasting visions reshaped poetic language and the cultural imagination.

F.T. Marinetti: The Futurist Body in Motion

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of Futurism, declared war on the past in his Futurist Manifesto (1909), urging artists to embrace speed, technology, and violence. The Futurist body became a metaphor for modernity-dissected, reassembled, and propelled into motion. Marinetti's Zang-Tumb-Tuuumb (1914), a poem inspired by his experience in the Balkan Wars, used onomatopoeia and typography to render the human form as a chaotic collage of sensations. Flesh was no longer static or sacred; it was parolibera (free words) in motion, fractured by machinery and conflict.

In works like The Foundry and Dynamism of a Car, Marinetti reduced bodies to kinetic components-arms as pistons, legs as engines. This mechanization mirrored industrial society's obsession with progress, erasing the boundary between human and machine. The body became a vessel for Futurist ideology: relentless, aggressive, and divorced from sentimental tradition.

H.D.: Sensual Flesh and Imagist Intimacy

In stark contrast, Hilda Doolittle-writing as H.D.-redefined physicality through intimate, nature-infused imagery. Her Imagist poetry, such as Oread and Heat, transformed the body into a landscape of sensory experience. In Oread, the speaker's desire merges with the natural world: "Whirl up, sea- / ... / until the sea crashes with its multitude of / white flowers." Here, the body is not a machine but a fluid entity, inseparable from the rhythms of nature.

H.D.'s Eurydice and Helen in Egypt further explored flesh as a site of mythic and erotic resonance. Unlike Marinetti's abstractions, her work embraced the tactile-skin, breath, and touch-to evoke a visceral connection between self and world. Her modernist sensibility lay in reimagining the body as a conduit for spiritual and sexual awakening, rejecting Victorian constraints.

Mechanistic vs. Organic: Redefining Physicality

The tension between Marinetti's Futurist and H.D.'s Modernist visions reflects broader cultural shifts. Marinetti's fragmented, mechanized bodies mirrored the dehumanizing effects of industrialization and war, positioning the body as a battleground for progress. Conversely, H.D.'s organic imagery resisted abstraction, grounding physicality in sensuality and ecological harmony. While both challenged Victorian ideals, Marinetti embraced disintegration, and H.D. sought wholeness through intimacy.

Conclusion

F.T. Marinetti and H.D. redefined physicality in verse by dismantling conventional portrayals of the body. Marinetti's Futurist manifestos transformed flesh into a symbol of industrial might, while H.D.'s lyrical precision located divinity in the corporeal. Together, their work illustrates Modernism's diverse engagements with the body-whether as machine or as earth-revealing how poetry became a laboratory for envisioning the human in an era of upheaval.