“Portrait d'une Femme” Introduction

• Read the full text of “Portrait d'une Femme”

“Portrait d'une Femme” Summary

“Portrait d'une Femme” Themes

• 

  Status, Identity, and Fulfillment

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Portrait d'une Femme”

• Lines 1-5

  Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
  London has swept about you this score years
  And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
  Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
  Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 6-10

  Great minds have sought you—lacking someone else.
  You have been second always. Tragical?
  No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
  One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
  One average mind—with one thought less, each year.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 11-12

  Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
  Hours, where something might have floated up.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 13-15

  And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
  You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
  And takes strange gain away:

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 16-17

  Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
  Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 18-21

  Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
  That might prove useful and yet never proves,
  That never fits a corner or shows use,
  Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 22-26

  The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
  Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
  These are your riches, your great store; and yet
  For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
  Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 27-30

  In the slow float of differing light and deep,
  No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
  Nothing that's quite your own.
                    Yet this is you.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

“Portrait d'une Femme” Symbols

• 

  Money and Finance

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Portrait d'une Femme” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Allusion

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Assonance

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Asyndeton

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Caesura

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Consonance

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Irony

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Repetition

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

“Portrait d'une Femme” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Sargasso Sea
• Score
• In fee
• Oddments
• Spars
• Dimmed
• Wares
• Of price
• Dulling
• Uxorious
• Gain
• Curious suggestion
• Pregnant with mandrakes
• Tarnished
• Idols
• Ambergris
• Inlays
• Sea-hoard
• Deciduous
• Sodden

• • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Portrait d'une Femme”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Portrait d'une Femme” Speaker

“Portrait d'une Femme” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Portrait d'une Femme”

More “Portrait d'une Femme” Resources

• External Resources

  • Imagist Poetry — Browse the first official anthology of Imagist poetry, edited by Pound and published in 1914.

  • A Biography of the Poet — Learn more about Ezra Pound's life and works via the Poetry Foundation.

  • A Modern Woman's Perspective — Browse "Modern Woman: Her Intentions," a book written by Florence Farr (Pound's possible muse) that outlines her view of female oppression and liberation in the early 20th century.

  • Imagining the Sargasso — Read the famous fictionalization of the Sargasso Sea from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Note that this is the original (partial) translation from the French that would have been available to English speakers at the time of this poem's publication.

  • The New Woman — Read up on how the feminist ideal of "The New Woman" was received in turn-of-the-century literature.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Ezra Pound

  • In a Station of the Metro

  • The River-Merchant's Wife