Marrysong

The poem is about a man trying to understand his lover, describing her actions and moods by comparing her to nature. || The poem is a conceit, as throughout the poem a consistent comparison between his wife and nature is made. Nature continually changes, a parallel to his wife’s continually changing temperament. This is shown by ‘she made wilderness again’ showing the poet’s desperation to understand his wife’s mood. The reader learns about their marriage through the title itself ‘Marrysong’, || The poet is trying to convey his emotions of confusion as he tries to understand his complicated wife. || The poet states that ‘he never learned her, quite’, showing his confusion and the difficulties he is facing while trying to understand his wife, but still failing. Eventually ‘he accepted geography constantly strange’. Third person pronouns 'he' and 'she' are used to appeal to people facing a similar situation. The poet generalizes the behavior of his wife to that of most women. || The poet is seen to be confused about his wife’s actions. || The poem has a sense of frustration which makes the reader feel sympathetic towards the narrator. He is baffled by his wife and eventually learns to accept the fact that ‘geography constantly strange’. The conceit (extended metaphor) further brings out his deep emotions as he tries to ‘chart’ (map) his wife, but like nature she continually changes. || Not divided into verses, free verse (no rhyme scheme) || The absence of a rhyme scheme (free verse) creates an irregular rhythm. This mirrors the poet’s wife’s emotions and mood, as she is described as being very complicated, he struggles to read her. The reader also reads the poem based on the own rhythm they create, (they are not restricted as the poem has no fixed rhythm of its own) this also mirrors the fact the poet tries to understand his wife from his own point of view. || Enjambment is frequently used to illustrate his wife’s continually changing emotions and mood. || The enjambment in lines 1-5 show his wife’s emotions perpetually flow from one to another, further increasing his confusion. Short sentences like ‘he charted’ and ‘wondered’ are complemented by long sentences ‘winds...calm’. The alternating sentence shows how his wife’s emotions are irregular and alternating. The use of caesura ‘sea –’ creates a sudden pause in the poem, quickly followed by ‘suddenly’ showing how she is calm, and ‘suddenly’ bursts out in rage. || The ‘:’ in line 11 shows he’s listing out her different changes in mood. The emphasis in ‘all, all’ denotes that novelty comes with frustration at not being able to understand her. The ‘shadows of her love’ continuously changed, a simile; ‘like trees from an unexpected hill’ used. As a day progresses, shadows shorten or lengthen. This parallels his wife’s temperament as her mood changes as the day progresses. There is use of gustatory imagery ‘tasting of sea’ which his wife’s rage is like a rainy storm and that he tastes her wrath, causing an unpleasant sensation. His wife keeps her anger and agitation contained in her as she digs up her ‘walled anger’ and resentment from buried ‘quarried hurt’. The use of such stone imagery is used to express her emotions and volatility. ‘Stones’ in her voice also have the connotation of hard and harsh emotions, shown as the wife’s voice. This is juxtaposed by the ‘cool water laughing’ in her voice, a contrast as water being free and bubbly, shows the connotation happy and buoyant emotions. The poem is a conceit, an extended metaphor comparing his wife to nature. The ‘landscapes of her mind’ have been portrayed as incredibly diverse, from ‘shores’ to ‘hills’ to ‘wilderness'. This parallels the complexity of her mind, and the diverse ‘landscapes’ of her personality mimic the diversity of nature. The extensive visual imagery used in the poem ‘unexpected hills’ implies his wife’s unexpected changes in her mood from one mood of happiness to another of sadness and anger. || (including tone, atmosphere) || The mood of the poem suggests that the man described is lost in his thoughts. It creates a sense of sadness and sympathy in the reader as the poet uses words in nature to describe the wife’s character such as ‘wilderness’ having a negative connotation of something that is untamed. The poet initially has a positive attitude towards his goal of understanding his wife. He ‘charted’ and tried to map her out with a more optimistic tone but as the poem progresses he ‘wondered’ whether he would ever understand his wife. The change in tone from optimistic to one resignation is complemented by a change of the mood of the poem. He also begins to accept her for what she is. || The poem provides a very stereotypical viewpoint towards the behavior of women, the title itself ‘Marrysong’ implies the woes of being married to a woman with such an unmanageable temperament. ||
 * || Effects & Evidence  [[image:charting.GIF width="195" height="195" align="center"]] ||
 * ** S ** ubject (overview)
 * ** P ** urpose
 * ** E ** motions
 * ** CRAFTSMANSHIP ** ||
 * ** S ** tructure
 * ** L ** ine length (end stopped, enjambment, punctuation such as caesura)
 * ** I ** magery || Through out the entire poem he compares her with various landscapes of nature ‘roads disappeared, the map was never true’ to show how nature changes constantly.
 * ** M ** ood
 * ** S ** ummary (go back to the main idea and the overall impact it has on you, the reader) || 'Marrysong' is about a man who is desperate to understand his wife: a stormy, temperamental woman who he compares to territory. The poem is an extended metaphor of this, explaining that the man explored her, and tried to 'map' her so that he could understand and predict her, but he fails to do so, and he keeps surprising her. He almost expresses a despairing and complaining attitude, but he seems more baffled by her. He also finds her a little alluring and intriguing in the way that her mood changes every day. The poem concludes with the man ‘accepting’ her and putting an end to trying to figure her out, and takes her for who she is without questioning it. The diction used is positive and negative as he is dismayed upon not being able to understand her and giving up, yet he is intrigued with her mood.