“ENVOI” BY EZRA POUND
The title of the poem means,
on the one hand, someone sent
on a mission to represent
the interests of
someone else, on the other hand, a brief stanza concluding certain forms of
poetry. (dictionary). Then, the poet can play with the ambiguity of the word,
to confound the reader.
Some authors pointed out that there was
a direct connection between Pound’s “Envoi” and Edmund
Waller’s “Go Lovely Rose,” a connection specifically pointed
out in the poem for those that were aware that “Go, Lovely Rose”
was set to music by Henry Lawes, a 17th century musician and friend of Milton
(Lorenwebster). Maybe, this
is the reason why Ezra Pound begins his poem in that way.
Ezra Pound is inviting the reader to accompany him
in his poetry. It is a way of attracting the attention of readers and
stimulating them.
The poem is written in 1919, after
World War I, therefore, people can think that the poet is inviting them to
struggle for their native land.
But I think that it is a poem where the
poet is celebrating the end of this war. Along the poem, there are a lot of
positive words “glories” (verse 7), “air” (verse 9),
“live” (verse 12), “roses” (verse 13) and the poet
repeats these words a lot: sing and song. It could be due to the desire to hear
music instead of shots, cannons, etc. that people have heard during four years.
For this, he wanted to listen to that song of Henry Lawes.
The poet thinks that everybody
knows this song by Lawes because for him, it is an
international song, it is like a national anthem.
At the same time, he remembers his
horrible past. He regrets having committed some mistakes because he can not
forget them “even my faults that heavy upon me lie” (verse 6).
He also remembers the countryside
that he saw around in that period. He refers to the abundant blood that there
was around him, showing a wrecked place when there is nothing more than people
killed “red overwrought with orange and all made one substance and one color braving time” (verses 14-15-16).
When Pound says, “I would bid them
live/ As roses might, in magic amber laid,/ Red overwrought with orange and all
made/ One substance and one color/ Braving
time,” he suggests that the beauty of the rose, and of a woman’s
loveliness, can only become eternal when captured and transmitted by art. Art,
in this case poetry, is the “magic amber” that both preserves and
transmits the original beauty. A carpe diem poem is transmuted into a statement
of how art provides a means of transcending time (Lorenwebster).
The poem is
written in the first person “my faults” (verse 6), “I would
bid” (verse 12), but there are a lot of references to a third person, a
girl, that the reader does not know who is “tell her” (verse 2),
“her glories”(verse 7), “tell her”(verse 8), “her
graces” (verse10), “tell her”(verse 17), “her
lips”(verse 18), “as fair as hers”(verse 21), “her
worshippers” (verse 22). We do not know if she is his sweetheart or
somebody invented by the author himself. It probably refers to an abstract
person, that is to say, in order to generalize and that everybody can feel
identified with the girl who the poet refers to.
With this poem I think
that he is trying to criticize the past and he hopes that the future will be
better, although it is not very difficult to achieve.
I think
that the poet wants to begin a new life surrounded by music, by peace, without
thinking about wars, about the cruelty of people… “life to the moment, I would bid them live” (verses
11-12). It is a way to go away of the reality that they had to live.
For this, he encourages people to do the
same, to forget the past.
For the author nothing is eternal. All
change except the eternal beauty. For this, it’s doesn’t matter
what is your physical appearance. The most important thing is how you really
are, and also all your experiences in your life, because they make up your
personality.
BIBLIOGAPHY
http://www.elook.org/dictionary/envoy.html,
visited March 17 2006
http://www.lorenwebster.net/In_a_Dark_Time/category/poets/ezra-pound/,
visited
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/pound01.html,
visited