1 / 4

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound. “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”. Ezra Pound ( 1885-1972). “In a Station of the Metro” The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Born in Hailey, Idaho / grew up in Pennsylvania

javier
Download Presentation

Ezra Pound

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Ezra Pound “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”

  2. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) • “In a Station of the Metro” The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. • Born in Hailey, Idaho / grew up in Pennsylvania • Taught at a conservative religious college for a while • Afterwards, Pound went to Europe in 1908 • Became a self-appointed spokesperson for the new poetic movement, called Imagism • T.S. Eliot dedicated his collection of poems, The Waste Land (1922) to Pound • Moved to Paris in 1921, and to Italy three years later • Continued to write poetry • His interest in economics and social theory led him to support Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy

  3. Ezra Pound • During WWII, he stayed in Italy • Became a propagandist for Mussolini’s policies • Criticized the struggle of the U.S. and its allies over a radio broadcast • Pound was taken prisoner in 1945 by the U.S. Army and confined • Taken back to the U.S. and charged with treason • Spent many years in a psychiatric hospital • Deemed criminally insane • Released due to complaints that his literary contributions outweighed his disastrous lack of judgment – Robert Frost = a supporter of this • Returned to Italy, which is where he spent the rest of his life

  4. “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” • Answer the following (pg. 576-577) • What events is Pound describing in each of the following: stanza 1, 2, 3, and 4? • What emotions and character traits do the images in lines 1-6 suggest? • What do lines 7-10 suggest about the circumstances of the speaker’s marriage and the way she felt about it for the first year? Cite details to support your answer. • At what point in the poem is there a turning point? How so? • Paraphrase line 14. • Why do you think Pound includes the images “swirling eddies” and “sorrowful noise” in the fourth stanza? • What image suggests that the river-merchant was reluctant to leave home? • Explain the meaning of line 25. • What do the images in the final stanza reveal about the speaker’s feelings? • Why might the river-merchant have left?

More Related