Text analysis
“In a Station of the Metro”
by Ezra Pound (1916)
Approaching Literary Genres p. 45
Millennium
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough”.
FOCUS ON THE
MEANING
1.
Highlight in red one more word that can be related to the title (essential for
comprehension).
•
“crowd” in line 1 and “black” in line 2 are both related to the title.
2.
The poem is based on a strong visual impression. There is a contrast of colours, or of light, within
each line. Why is the bough wet? Give reasons for your choice/s:
 as a symbol of fertility
 to signify winter
 wet boughs are darker
Boughs are wet because this makes them darker increasing the contrast of colours.
The faces stand out against the darkness of the crowd and, in th same way, the colour of
the petals stands out against the blackness of the bough.
FOCUS ON THE
METAPHOR
3. The poem is a single elaborate metaphor.
a. in blue is highlighted the first term of comparison, highlight the second term and
describe them.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough”.
•
•
The first term of comparison is “these faces” (l.1).
We do not find a description of the faces. We just know that they appear in the darkness
of the crowd.
The second term of comparison are the “petals” (l.2). The image of “petals” is used by the
poet to convey the beauty of the faces that suddenly appear in the darkness of the crowd
b. The first term of the metaphor, as is usual, is changed by the second: it takes on
new characteristics and meanings. How is the first line changed by the second
one? Explain it in your own words.
•
The faces of people coming out of the metro station become petals. In other
words, an ordinary scene of town life, which is trivial in itself, is transformed by the
visionary quality of the poem into a refined image. This is the way the poet
transforms ordinary life into poetry.
FOCUS ON THE
METAPHOR
4. The extraordinary compactness of the poem derives from the absence of a verb.
Highlight in green two repetitions of similar sounds.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough”.
SOME FAMOUS EXAMPLES OF METAPHOR
One of the most prominent examples of a metaphor in English literature is the “All the world's a stage” monologue
from ”As You Like It”
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It,
This quotation contains a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage. By figuratively asserting that the world
is a stage, Shakespeare uses the points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding
about the mechanics of the world and the lives of the people within it.
“Life’s but a walking shadow” – W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5
This quotation contains another metaphor. Shakespeare here compares “life” to “a walking shadow” to
communicate the idea that life is as “impalpable” as a shadow, i.e difficult to catch and understand .
A DEFINITION OF METAPHOR
•
The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1937) by, I. A. Richards (an influential English literary
critic) describes a metaphor as having two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The
tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose
attributes are borrowed. In the previous example, "the world" is compared to a stage,
describing it with the attributes of "the stage"; "the world" is the tenor, and "a stage"
is the vehicle; "men and women" is the secondary tenor, and "players" is the
secondary vehicle.
Common
Ex 1
Tenor:
The world
Ground:
A place
where
individuals
play a part
Vehicle:
A stage
The analogy between tenor and vehicle, i.e. the ideas they share, are called common ground
Ex 2
Tenor:
Life
Common
Ground:
Impalpability
Vehicle:
shadow