The+River-Merchant's+Wife--A+Letter

EZRA POUND The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter (//after Rihaku//) While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours For ever and for ever and for ever. Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed, You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies, And you have been gone five months. The monkyes make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, Too deep to clear them away.

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older. If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang, Please let me know beforehand, And I will come out to meet you As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

The whole poem makes me feel happy at the beginning and sorrowful at the ending. The puppy love between the little girl and the little boy expresses a sense of pureness. The surroundings in the garden contribute to the key point. However, my overall sense of the ending part is sadness and waiting. This is a dramatic monologue.
 * Way 1: First Impressions (all of these subheadings are heading three) **

"The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound is a loose paraphrase of 18th-century Chinese poet Li Po’s poem, stressing a girl’s memory of her puppy love and yarning for her husband. ** The poem contains five stanzas. I would consider the first three paragraphs as the first part and the rest as the second part. **The first part of the poem is about two child’s wonderful time spending together in the village. It describes every moment the boy coming by, playing with her in the garden and later on continues to their marriage when the girl is fourteen. The second part of the poem is about the boy’s leaving and the girl’s loneliness and missing. Vertical Thinking: Close Readings of the Text **
 * Way 2: Engaging in the text **

** Way 3: A Point about Form and Its Relationship to Content ** Pound’s poem is a narrative poem since it tells a story about love and longing. It has six stanzas with four to eight sentences each. The beginning and ending stanzas occupy the most sentences. It may indicate that the girl is more willing to memorize the beautiful times spending with her boy in her childhood and her strong missing aroused by her husband’s leave. Thus, the author would use fewer sentences to describe the period they are beginning to farewell. The poem follows a chronological sequence from past to present, from being together to staying apart. It also has various rhymes in the manners like abcbaa, abbb. The variety of the rhymes makes it more free-styled than strictly-ruled. For me, the lack of alliteration makes this kind of love poems more readable and story-telling. Way 4: Unpacking an Instance of Figurative Language ** “Why should I climb the look out?” is a rhetorical question. There is no answer to be expected from the author but one in fact resonates in readers’ mind: there is no reason to climb the look out. It indicates when the couple got married, the wife quite trusted her husband and there was no need to keep watch with him. However, it contrasted with the concern and worry from the wife at present, sharply. “Swirling eddies” uses the means of hyperbole. A river merely has swirling eddies in the ocean. The figurative method used here is to stress the wife’s mind is upset and she assumed the situation her husband stays is dangerous. “Too deep to clear them away!” uses an imagery device to let the reader image the long period the husband has been away from his wife. Although the denotative meaning of the sentence is regarding the fallen leaves, it also indicates the sorrowful long separating period. “Paired butterflies” is a metaphor. It is especially certain in classic Chinese fiction that a pair of butterflies is the substitution of a couple. It stresses the wife’s urge to be with her husband as an integrated pair.

Way 5: Analyzing the Setting ** This little poem firstly takes place in the village of Chokan. The main setting of this village was very rural, lively and care-free. “I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.” The scene of childish playing creates a symbol of innocence and pureness, just like the poem said, “two small people, without suspicion.” However, the fun time without anything unimportant contrasts sharply with the sorrowful farewell scene, as suggested in the sentences like “the river of swirling eddies ” and “The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.” The swirling eddies brings danger and harshness into the situation while monkeys’ plaintive cry represents the girl’s sorrow. “The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind” along with the “ paired butterflies ” represents the girl’s strong desire to stay together with her husband since autumn often triggers the suffering from the lack of something. Horizontal Thinking **  **Way 8: Considering Canonicity** This poem can be considered as a canon since it has aesthetic value (Brown and Yarbrough 2). The aesthetic value derives from its simplicity of the poem language. There is nearly no difficult figurative language to plague the readers in this poem, but rather, with commonly seen images of “flowers”, “ eddies” and “butterflies” as symbols. For a Chinese literature, one of the critiques to be a good classic work is to use minimal statement to convey the precise emotion. Efficiency counts. This is a story about a wife’s retrospection of the early days with her husband and her present desire to reunite with him. It can sustain long since everyone regardless of culture can face departures of others. So it contributes to its longevity.  Rihaku is the Japanese Romaji of Li Bai, which is the real name of this Chinese poet. He was one of the most prestigious poets in China’s literary history. Born in Chengdu, Si Chuan province, Li Bai started to learn Taoism at the age of ten (Legacy, 1). This classical philosophy later had great impact on his literary writing. Taoism promotes “nature”, “action through inaction” and “men-cosmos correspondence” (Wiki). “ The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter” is written in a soft tone. Starting with a romance happened in a beautiful garden, the poem is normally developed in a “peaceful” way. However, at the same time, it is also able to express the protagonist’s intense emotions: missing and desire to reunite with her husband in an invisible way. This is Taoism’s idea of “action through inaction,” to impress the audience imperceptibly. Li Bai also liked drinking wine. This might contribute to his romanticism in his work. The description of two protagonists’ romance during childhood is romantic and lovely.
 * Connecting the Text to Wider Contexts **
 * Way 9: Biographical Context**

Li Bai’s poem was written in the T’ang Dynasty Era (618-907). During this period, China was relatively peaceful as it compared to the Spring and Autumn war period. It became one of the most powerful centuries in the world with the Europeans living in the Dark Age. It was normal for Li Bai to drink a bit wine and write some sentimental poems that focus on neighborhood issues and romantic relationships. It was also popular for many poets to do so.  ** Works Cited and Consulted ** ** Way 13: Unifying Interpretation ** ** Way 12: Another Theoretical Application ** ** Way 11: Theoretical Application ** Legacy. 2008. Lee’s genealogy. Retrieved from [] on 2009/7/22 Wiki. Taoism. Retrieved from [] on 2009/7/22
 * Way 10: Historical and Cultural Contexts **