Wednesday, June 8, 2011

What is the significance of 'Stayed home increasingly to find his way among the landscapes of her mind' in Dennis Scott's 'Marrysong'?In particular...

First, let me say, that as a married woman, I read this
poem far differently than I would have while still single.  To me, this is a poem about
a married couple.  The "year after year" suggests they have been together for a long
time, and assumedly, if they are still together, the relationship is
working.


The poem seems to be all about the man in the
relationship (the husband in my view), and his desire to know and understand his wife. 
The words/imagery charted, wilderness,
map, and journey are very masculine approaches
to viewing a relationship.  For a man, things are very black and white.  He's thinking,
if I just study her long enough, take notes, draw pictures, and lay everything
out, I'll have her solved!
Of course, this is not the way it works, because
women's emotions are never so simple, so predictable, nor so organized.  To me, the poem
is all about his lifelong persuit of understanding his wife's moods, emotions, behavior,
but never actually (fully) succeeding.  The final
line:



Stayed
home increasingly to find his way among the landscapes of her
mind



suggests, to me, that he
is willing to devote more and more time to knowing her.  This further suggests that he's
doing it because he loves her.  No one would devote so much energy into such an endless
exploration, unless the devotion was connected to love.  The image of a "landscape" for
her mind shows that his pursuit is not futile, it is simply endless.  She is so vastly
complex that even if he devotes his entire life to "exploring" her, he'll never have
enough time.  And (I believe) he is okay with that.  The tone of the poem suggests that
there is a joy in the challenge.

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