Transcript The River Merchant`s Wife: A Letter

The River
Merchant’s Wife:
A Letter
Li Po
Origin
•South East
Asia/China
Li Po
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T’ang Dynasty
Golden Age of Poetry
Free spirited poetry
Graceful and lyrical style
Moved frequently
Lived in exile
Influenced by Taoist thought and Neo-Taost
thought
• Poetry conveys his love for freedom
Persona
• The characters assumed by the
speaker of the poem, novel, or
short story.
• Not who the author actually is
• Often times in Chinese poetry,
the author and the speaker are
very different
Poem
• Persona (mask in Latin) think about
the author putting on a mask of the
character to reveal the story or
message through the character’s
point of view
• Song-like poem (ballad)
• Tells a story
The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
• Persona- the speaker is a young woman
waiting for the return of her husband
• Her husband has gone on a long and
dangerous journey up the Yangtze River
• Li Po has put on the “mask” of the rivermerchant’s wife to narrate this letter
What characters take on a different
persona?
• Hannah Montana
• Superman
• Batman
• Spiderman