SOURCE: Watt, Stephen. “Neurotic Responses to a Failed Marriage: George Meredith's Modern Love.” Mosaic 17, no. 1 (1984): 49-63.

In the following essay, Watt employs the concept of neurosis to interpret the thoughts and behavior of the husband in Modern Love. Watt reads the husband's actions as symptomatic of his narcissism and his subconscious desire for a reunion with the Mother.

Most readers of George Meredith's Modern Love (1862)—even those whose interest in the psychology of the poem's husband is ancillary to other issues—are struck by the intensity of the husband's internal battles. For this reason, phrases such as “harrowing psychological detail,” “unstable emotional state” and “mental dilemma” have become commonplace in critical discussions of the poem. Complicating yet potentially enriching critical understanding of the husband's problems is the matter of his relationship to the poem's narration. While nearly everyone recognizes the narrator of sonnets “I-IX” and “XLIX-L” as the...