Portrait d'une Femme Themes

The title tells us that this poem is a portrait of a woman, so we should have a pretty good sense of who this woman by the end, right? Um...not really. "Portrait d'une Femme" ends with the line, "...

"Portrait d'une Femme" moves between two settings: the Sargasso Sea and London. It alternates between chaotic, natural sea imagery and depictions of civilized urban life. Interestingly, both the se...

Although "Portrait d'une Femme" is filled with vivid, concrete imagery of the sea and sea-bound cargo, the actual merchandise traded seems to be conversation, which is much more intangible and hard...

You can almost read "Portrait d'une Femme" as a long inventory, or laundry list. The speaker outlines a whole "sea-hoard" of different types of merchandise, both manmade and nature-made, tangible a...