Time, Age, and the Seasons
"The River-Merchant's Wife" traces the course of the speaker's growth from childhood to adulthood in a matter of years. To drive home the emotional development of our speaker in that time, the poem...
Butterflies
When we think of love and butterflies, we imagine the bubbly feeling that you get in your tummy when you think of your loved one. In this poem? Not so much. Here, butterflies represent for the spea...
Environment and Geography
Like monkeys? Like maps? You're in luck: "The River-Merchant's Wife" has both! The poem also name-drops. Because Pound was working off somebody else's notes, he uses the Japanese names of actual Ch...