The River-Merchant’s Wife (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ezra Pound
- First Published: 1915
- Type of Work: Dramatic monologue
- Genres: Poetry, Dramatic monologue
- Subjects: Children, Husbands, Wives, Traveling or travelers, Love or romance, Marriage, Letter writing, China or Chinese people, Time, Joy or sorrow, Aging, Seasons
The Poem
Ezra Pound’s adaptation of a poem by Li Bo, an eighth century Chinese poet, is a dramatic monologue spoken by a sixteen-year-old girl. It is written in open verse in the form of a letter from the wife of a river-merchant to her husband, who has been away from their home for five months.
The opening of the poem conveys both immediacy and continuance. The first line begins with the word “while” and presents an image of the wife as a young girl. The second line starts with the word “I” and contains an image of the girl playing at the moment when she met...
[The entire page is 1496 words long]
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