This poem is filled with allusions. For starters, the poem's title is translated from French as "Portrait of a Lady," which is also the title of a poem by T. S. Eliot, published the year before Pound's poem appeared in print:
- Eliot's "Portrait" also addresses an aging lady who has spent her life engaging in meaningless conversation and empty cultural activities.
- Eliot's speaker, too, dislikes and derides the lady (though more subtly), but with the lady's help, he realizes that he is headed for a similar fate.
Both Eliot's poem and this on also e allude to a novel by Henry James entitled "The Portrait of a Lady" (1881):
- James's novel follows a young woman who is also determined to maintain her independence and freedom, refusing marriage proposals as she travels and seeks fulfillment.
- However, she places much emphasis on high culture and sophistication, which leads her to marry an interesting but vile man. She ultimately ends up in just the sort of loveless and restrictive marriage that she hoped to avoid.
By referencing these stories, the speaker reduces the lady to a trope or "type," encouraging the audience to see the speaker's statements as a commentary on a wider trend (i.e., women pursuing independence over marriage). Invoking such a generalized trope also reinforces the speaker's argument that the lady has no fixed individual identity, but is defined by her relationship to others. Finally, the bleak fate of the other ladies suggests that the life of this "femme" will also end in tragedy and loneliness.
The speaker's mention of the "Sargasso Sea" might also be another subtle allusion, this time to Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea:
- This 1870 novel devotes a chapter to the Sargasso, which describes the region as a dense "carpet" of seaweed, among which all sorts of debris is found floating.
- Much like unmarried upper-class women, apparently, the Sargasso has been a popular muse for writers. It is typically imagined as a region of mystery and intrigue, so thick with refuse that it is difficult to navigate, possibly trapping ships for long periods. This is an inaccurate depiction of the sea, which is calm and easy to traverse, but the speaker's description of a dense and curious shipwreck calls on this tradition.
- References to the Sargasso suggest that the lady is bogged down by all of the discarded information that she collects. This allusion also reinforces the uselessness of the items that she has collected; they seem to gather with her when no one else wants them, akin to the debris that currents naturally dump in the Sargasso.
Finally, this poem contains several vague references to the Elizabethan Era (1558-1603), a period in the late Renaissance that is generally considered the "Golden Age" of English culture:
- The speaker references common imagery from the time, including a "loom," "mandrakes," and "ambergris."
- Pound also lifts the phrase "its hour upon" from Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606)—in particular, Macbeth's soliloquy on his wife's suicide.
- Even the use of blank iambic pentameter can be seen as invoking this celebrated age of English literature.
While perhaps not true allusions, these references align Pound with the greats of literary history, giving the poem added weight and significance. And as the lady constantly dredges up weathered "trophies" of her most impressive relationships, these references reinforce the curiosity and greatness of an earlier time—one that can never be recovered.