PanPan

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. 

 This is a dramatic monologue. The whole poem makes me feel sweet and happy at the beginning but sad and sorrowful in the end. The puppy love story between the little girl and the boy conveys a sense of pureness, peacefulness and the simplicity of human relationship to the readers. However, the latter part of the poem starting from “At sixteen you departed…”, everything changes to her longing and desire for reunion with her husband.
 * Way 1: First Impressions (all of these subheadings are heading three)**

"The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound is a dramatic monologue, written from a woman’s perspective. It is a loose paraphrase of the eighteenth-century Chinese poet Li Po’s poem. The story stresses a woman’s memory of her love in childhood and now the desire to reunion with her husband. The poem contains five stanzas. I consider the first three paragraphs as the first part and the rest as the second. The first part of the poem is about two child’s wonderful period spending together in the village. It tells the girl enjoyed each moment the boy coming by, playing with her in the garden and their early marriage until the girl turns to sixteen. The second part of the poem stresses the boy’s departure to Ku-to-yen and the girl’s loneliness and missing for him.
 * Way 2: Engaging in the text** 

**Vertical Thinking: Close Readings of the Text** Pound’s poem is a narrative poem and it tells a story about puppy love, marriage and long-distance relationship. It has six stanzas involving from four to eight sentences in each. The beginning and ending stanzas occupy the most sentences. It may indicate the female speaker's willing to memorize the beautiful times spending with her husband in early period and her beautiful dream to reunion with him in the future. Between the two stanzas, the more the plot develops, the sadder the story is. Thus, the author uses fewer sentences to describe the protagonist's sorrowful period. The poem follows a chronological sequence from past to present, from being together to falling apart. It has many different rhyme schemes in the manners like abcbaa, abbb etc., Overall, it doesn't have rigid rhyme structure like Shakespeare's sonnet. Instead, it is a free verse. It not only makes the story more readable and story-telling, but also enables it keeps accordance with the characteristics of the genre of "letter": simple and direct.
 * Way 3: A Point about Form and Its Relationship to Content **

Just like Leslie Marmon says "Every word tells a story", specific words that suspect us often offer some food for thought (Silko, Professor's Notes). Connotative effect often surpasses its denotative meaning. The rhetorical question, hyperbole and metaphor in this poem gain me some insight into the theme. “Why should I climb the look out?” is a rhetorical question. There is no answer to be expected from the female protagonist, but it triggers the assured answer from the readers: there is no reason for her to look out. It indicates that the wife fully trusted her husband and she was in no need to keep watch with him in the early period of marriage. However, this trust now contrasts sharply with the wife's full concern and worry, suggesting the gapped relationship between them. “Swirling eddies” uses the means of hyperbole. In a normal sense, a river merely has swirling eddies, unlike the ones in the ocean. The figurative method used here is to emphasize the wife's complicated mind and upsetness, or, she assumed her husband's current situation is dangerous since the eddies are not safe to enter into. “Too deep to clear them away!” uses an imagery device to let the reader image how long the protagonist's husband has been away. Although the denotative meaning of the sentence is: the fallen leaves are too thick to clear, the underlying effect is to indicate the sorrowful seperating period has covered many autumns or years. “Paired butterflies” is a metaphor. It has unique meaning in the classic Chinese fiction. A pair of butterflies is usually a substitution for "a couple" in the man-woman relationship. This phrase derives from a famous Chinese legend "//The Butterfly Lovers"// (Wikipedia), in which two protagonists evolve into butterflies after their deaths. This legend often symbolizes the foreverness and eternity in love. The use of this legend in this poem not only stresses the wife's urge to be with her husband as an integrated pair, but also expresses her willingness to fly freely with her husband even with the risk of death, to "share the dust with him".
 * Way 4: Unpacking an Instance of Figurative Language **

**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.

"The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter "is written in the third person limited point of view. The poem is told from the wife’s perspective in the poem. The advantage to use this point of view is to help the readers to focus on the thoughts and emotions of the wife, which is essential in the poem. Since the theme of the poem is to express the wife’s loneliness since her husband’s departure and her strong desire to reunite with him, the wife’s psychological actives therefore become the center of the poem.
 * Way 6: Identifying and Analyzing Point of View **

This portion of the poem confuses me the most: “At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful” and “At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours”. I’m wondering what had happened during the year as the girl turned from fourteen to fifteen. It is such a sharp change in the girl’s attitude toward her husband that departs away the whole text’s slow pace, peaceful picture and the gentle development of the plot. This difficulty leads me to stop a little bit in reading the poem and makes it ambiguity in this section of the poem.
 * Way 7: Analyzing Complexity, Ambiguity, & Difficulty **

**Horizontal Thinking**: **Connecting the Text to Wider Contexts** ** Way 8: Considering Canonicity ** The canon should have the following criteria: longevity, aesthetic and cultural value (Brown and Yarbrough, 2). This poem has aesthetic value. It derives from its simplicity. The language, the structure and the plot are all clear to see. There is nearly no difficult figurative language that plagues the readers. The use of commonly seen images and objects like "bamboo stilts", "moss", "flowers" and "butterflies" smoothly express the sense of beauty and the couple's great time. Even the comparatively abstract word "eddies"could inform us the dangerous situation by its vivid image. For a classic Chinese literature, one of the critiques to be a good classic work is to use minimal statement to convey the precise emotion. Efficiency greatly counts. And Ezra Pound well maintained this characteristic from its original text.  This story reflects the happiness of human love and the sadness at seperation. It can sustain its longevity since everyone regardless of culture will meet up this kind of situation. The shared experience between different cultures could also be the reason why Pound choose to translate this poem to the western readers. It also has cultural value since its original text was derived from a Chinese poem. The distinct setting and plot that contains Chinese elements like "bamboo stilts" and the girl's conservative behavior after marriage: I never laughed, being bashful will have its cultural value.

According to Ezra Pound’s biography, he had several unfortunate relationships with women (Thomas, 1). Firstly he was deprived of his teaching position due to his a stranded woman in his room staying overnight with him. And then he had unhappy courtship with someone else. This can be the motivation for him to translate this love poem with unhappy ending, in order to express his own desire for love and longing for relationship with women. On the other hand, Rihaku, the Japanese Romaji of Li Bai, 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 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” contains several Taoism’s ideas. The whole text was written in a soft tone, starting with a romance happened in a beautiful garden. The poem is developed in a “peaceful” way, even since the husband’s depart. 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. Way 10: Historical and Cultural Contexts ** Ezra Pound’s translation started at the period when poets like him just realized images had long been used in the Chinese poetry. Pound studied Fenollosa manuscripts and learned the Chinese ideogram, which was to use symbols to stress a thing and an object. This finding effectively bridges the gap between different cultures in poetry writing. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">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 time. China became one of the most powerful countries in the world, with the Europeans living in the Dark Age. It then becomes normal for Li Bai to drink a bit wine and write some sentimental poems about neighborhood issues and romantic relationships in peace time. It was also popular for many Chinese poets to do so. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">**Way 11: Theoretical Application** The feminist Criticism first comes into place in my mind. Since both of the author and the creator of the original edition of “The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter”, Ezra Pound and Li Bai, are talented male writers, it is a bit muddling for us to read this poem from a female perspective. How could male express their female counterparts’ thoughts and feelings well? Especially in the era of Li Bai and Ezra Pound, male was considered to be the dominant gender and the controller of the world while woman was inferior. The evident sex gap makes these male writers’ “sympathy” puzzling. The plots that the couple’s love story lingers in the wife’s heart and the wife’s missing emotion is profoundly strong since her husband’s departure make women lovely and strong. It makes people pay attention to the women’s emotional status and further their social status: being wrapped around by men’s fingers.
 * <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: black; font-size: 13pt; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; msofontkerning: 0pt;">Way 9: Biographical Context **
 * <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: black; font-size: 13pt; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; msofontkerning: 0pt;">

A psychoanalytic reading might suggest the conservative and less-expressed sexual desire between the lovers in ancient China. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> “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.” Although the girl got married to her boy, she still remained shy and reserved to express her love openly. This was the so-called “beauty of avoidance” by a girl in a relationship in ancient China and it was quite normal to see girls evade their lovers. Way 13: Unifying Interpretation ** When I firstly read the poem “The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter”, I didn’t pay much attention to its beauty. Because this poem was relatively easy to understand, it didn’t make me to ask questions or even have confusion. However, with each way of the project progresses, I learn more about this poem like its simplicity of language, smart use of figurative language and its cross-cultural value. Taoism’s ideas behind this poem make it philosophically “action through inaction.” Although this poem seems simple, silent and even plain, its ability to convey the protagonist’s love for her playmates, loneliness since her husband’s depart and the eagerness to reunite with him is strong and effective. Look back at its no-rhymed sentences, the poem is easy to read and chase the protagonist’ mind. After studying Ezra Pound’s and Li Bai’s biography, the creation and translation of this poem is not coincident. The relatively peaceful social background in the period in China triggered poets like Li Bai wrote poems that relates to neighborhood issues and sentimental stories. On the other hand, Pound’s involvement in Chinese ideology and his own failed relationships with women may offer him some motivation to translate this Chinese poem. ** Works Cited and Consulted ** Legacy. 2008. Lee’s genealogy. Retrieved from [] on 2009/7/22 Wikipedia. Taoism. Retrieved from __ [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism] __ on 2009/7/22 Wikipedia. Butterfly Lovers. Retrieved from [] on 2009/7/30 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: none; msofontkerning: 1.0pt; text-underline: none; textunderline: none; msofareastfontfamily: 宋体; msoansilanguage: EN-US; msofareastlanguage: ZH-CN; msobidilanguage: AR-SA;"> Thomas. A. The Wondering Minstrels. // [70] The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter //. Retrieved from [] on 2009/7/30
 * Way 12: Another Theoretical Application**