The Lacanian Study of “the Mower Poems”: Mower’s Separation from and Reunion with Nature

Abstract

This study aims to analyze Marvell’s “the Mower Poems” in terms of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. The researcher tries to show the resemblance of the triadic relationship of the Oedipus complex in the first three Mower Poems: “The Mower against Gardens,” “Damon the Mower,” “The Mower to the Glowworms”. The main desire of the Mower is toward the reunion with the mother. This desire can also be seen as the death drive, which means returning to the preoedipal stage. In the last poem, “The Mower’s Song”, as the result of the foreclosure, the Mower shows some signs of psychosis. This poem ends with the death of the Mower and his return to nature. This return to, and reunion with, nature can be read as the return and reunion with the mother, and dissolution of the Mower’s subjectivity. The researcher tries to read the four poems as a cycle. It starts from the imaginary stage of union between the Mower and nurturing nature, and ends with his return to nature by his death