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Appreciation of the Poem In a Station of the Metro

学号： 姓名：张欣慧

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

In a Station of the Metro is an imagist poem by Ezra Pound published

in 1913 in author Ezra Pound, was an American poet, critic,

and he is one of the founders of imagist poetry movement. This little poem,

although only two lines, but it is one of the earliest imagist poetry

masterpiece. And, this is the two lines of poetry, and has more than 20

kinds of different Chinese version.

This poem attempts to describe Pound's experience upon visiting an

underground metro station in Paris in 1912, and Pound suggested that the

faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with

a description but with an equation. Because of the treatment of the

subject's appearance by way of the poem's own visuality, it is considered

a quintessential Imagist text.

In the poetry of

In a Station of the Metro, one of the most impressive

characteristics of artistic expression is image superposition

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characterized by intuitiveness which links metaphor and images together

to produce a variety of special and unique artistic effect. In the poetry

of

In a Station of the Metro, the image of “apparition of faces” in the

first line echoes to “petals on a bough” in the second line. Such kind

of image superposition contains profound thoughts and leaves us an

unmeasured mental space to imagine the information and emotion hidden in

this poetry.

These two sets of images in front of us have describes such a picture

like: After a heavy rain, the sky was gloomy and grey, the air was humid

and filled with the smell of material decadence. A dark and wet subway

station was standing in a corner of the city. People in this station were

crowd and silent, moving mechanically without any communications with

others. Some of them seemed to be alert, some seemed to cunning and some

seemed to be indifferent with everything, without any face expression.

Suddenly, there appeared innocent faces of children as good as petals,

they were hand in hand with each other and sing along with their songs…The

poet was pleasantly surprised and refreshed by these faces.

And in this poetry, there are two lines with all together fourteen

words and except for the words like: in, these, of, a, the, on, there are

mainly five nouns and two adjectives. It produces four images with two

images in the first line and another two in the second line.

In the first line, there are the two images: “face” and “crowd”.

“Face” is the carrier of “apparition”, and it is the bright spot in

the crowded subway station. The “face” under the foil of “apparition”

looks like the lotus in the mud. And the second image is the “crowd”

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which presents the scene of the poetry----subway station. In this crowded

station where people comes and goes in a hurry, the only one thing caught

poet’s eyes was the faces of the beauty who appeared unimaginably and

disappeared hastily. That’s why the author called them “apparition”,

since they are so beautiful that the poet cannot believe and disappear

so quickly that the port cannot grasp in time.

In the second line, there are another two images, “petals” and

“bough”. Ezra Pound resembled “petals” to the “faces” of the young

and children that appeared in the dark and wet subway station. And like

the relations between “petals” and “faces”, “bough” also echoes to

the image of “crowd” which serves as a foil to “petals”. And there

are two adjectives used to mollify “bough”, they are “black” and

“wet”. Because of the close relations between “bough” and “crowd”,

the two adjectives “black” and “wet” not only belongs to the image

of “bough”, but also mollify the image of “crowd” while “wet”

demonstrates the face of sweats or glittering eyes of the beauty; and

“black” demonstrates the darkness in the station and the gloomy of

people.

Ezra Pound is one of the founders of imagism and puts forward three

principles of imagist poetry. And

In a Station of the Metro is one of his

masterpieces in imagist poems which clearly and skillfully presents the

first principle of describing and presenting things directly and

concisely.

Obviously, it is the traffic hub of a city that can best demonstrate

the modern civil culture in it. Thus, the image of city would better be

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presented by the subway station. Since, over there, you can witness the

ups and downs of people and imagine the prosperity and poverty of the city;

And under the severe destruction of industrial civilization, only plants

growing in natural environment can better demonstrate the passed good

industrial civilization. Thus, the “petals” on the “bough” must be

the best image of the good things produced by industrial society. It is

these two totally different sets of images that provide us with direct

access to understand the feelings of Ezra Pound towards western industrial

country.

We can understand it from two different ways. On the one hand,

“petals” not grow on green branched but on the wet black “bough”. It

forms an obvious contrast between the beauty of “petals” and the black

of “bough”, which makes the “petals” looks more beautiful and the

black “bough” much more ugly and disgusting. Form this point, we can

imagine that poet hates the luxury, materialistic inflation, and

indifference which deeply rooted at city life, and eagers to pursue the

good things which are full of hope and optimism. On the other hand, on

the black wet “bough”, there appeared beautiful “petals”, and in humid

and gloomy environment, there appeared glittering “faces” of beauty.

The “apparition of faces” and “petals on the bough” supports each

other and adds to each other’s connotation of image. Form this point,

and think together with our usual lives, it would not be difficult for

us to find the philosophy contained in it: The darkness in society is

coincided with the brightness; and the ugliness is also coincided with

beauty to exist in the world; and the dilemma must coincided with hopes

and chances. Thus, do not loose your heart and never give up once you are

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trapped in troubles and feel depressed; and do keep your awareness of

unexpected sufferings when your are living in a harmonious life.

What’s more, we can find that the images in the poetry of In a Station

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of the Metro

are “still and silent”. Like “faces” and “crowd”,

“petals” and “bough”. There are no verbal words in this poetry while

every noun represents a piece of picture and appears one by one to make

up a visual feast for readers. And it would not be difficult for us to

find that the descriptions of the images in this poetry are both subjective

and objective. Like “faces” and “petals”, “crowds” and “bough”,

the former is subjective and the latter is objective. Ezra Pound uses both

objective statements and subjective imaginations to deliver his own

opinions and emotions. Lastly, we need to know that the images we’ve found

in this poetry are such a kind of mental images. Both “petals” and

“bough” are mental images in poet’s heart. They are the imaginations

of the “faces” appeared in the subway station which are not real. Such

kind of mental images are produced in moments when poet finally obtain

spirits and put them into the internal mind after careful observation and

imaginative contemplation.

The poem of

In a Station of the Metro

is not only a great masterpiece

among Ezra Pound’s imagistic poems, but also stands for a landmark in

the creation of imagistic poems in history of the world.

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