Self-portrait
Self-portrait - meaning Summary
Selfhood Sketched in Features
The poem sketches a face whose physical features stand for inner traits: noble lineage, lingering childhood fears, humble service, and a measured, truthful speech. The gaze and forehead suggest quiet introspection rather than theatricality. Rather than presenting a finished character, the speaker treats this likeness as provisional—assembled from scattered elements and not yet tested by suffering or success—implying an ongoing, inward search for a coherent self.
Read Complete AnalysesThe steadfastness of generations of nobility shows in the curving lines that form the eyebrows. And the blue eyes still show traces of childhood fears and of humility here and there, not of a servant's, yet of one who serves obediantly, and of a woman. The mouth formed as a mouth, large and accurate, not given to long phrases, but to express persuasively what is right. The forehead without guile and favoring the shadows of quiet downward gazing. This, as a coherent whole, only casually observed; never as yet tried in suffering or succeeding, held together for an enduring fulfillment, yet so as if for times to come, out of these scattered things, something serious and lasting were being planned.
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