THE RIVER AND THE VORTEX: THE RIVER MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER BY EZRA POUND
In: Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta: naučnyj žurnal = Moscow State University bulletin. Serija 9, Filologija, Heft №5, 2023, S. 152-161
The article is dedicated to E. Pound's poem The River Merchant Wife:
a Letter, which is included in the poet's book of Chinese translations Cathay.
According to Pound's beliefs, the translation does not have to copy the original, so
Pound makes his own adjustments to Li Po's poem, which he takes as a basis. The
author of the article compares Li Po's poem with the Pound's variation, analyzes the
features of a Browninguesque dramatic monologue in the latter. The inclusion of
new meanings in the River Merchant Wife: a Letter is also realized due to the fact
that Pound reduces some images he does not need or does not understand. The article
deals with the theories of sign by Pound — Fenollosa, the poem is analyzed as Imagist
(the language acquires materiality, which is emphasized by the abundance of nouns)
and as Vorticist (images are not fixed, but are constantly pulsating, moving towards
each other; a poetic impulse is born with the help of their interaction). The image
of the whirling eddy, which repeats in Pound's poem, suggests that the poet
deliberately offers us a new reading of the Chinese story about a woman waiting for
her husband. The River Merchant Wife: a Letter can be read as the 'river', i.e.
considering a linear sequence of actions, one can also read it as a 'whirlpool', 'vortex',
using the 'ideogrammic method' and perceiving each stanza of the text as part of a
hieroglyph. The latter option becomes another step towards the creation of a new
poetic language for Pound.