Pagan Poetry

This song conjures memories of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, for those of you have read it then you’ll understand my post, for those of you who have not read the novel it is not horribly difficult to parallel the two. Like several of you have mentioned the song is of two paramours (I’ll use diction which appears in Hawthorne’s text) which share a very strong bound: as the text explicates Björk’s lover has the ability to wake her up with out him-self being present: “ Morse coding signals…They pulsate…and wake me up…from my hibernating”; this is very similar to the bond which Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale share; they are able to sense each others feeling and share the same suffering and guilt. But just like Björk’s imagery gets across the state of pain which she feels for her lover stating that the “darkest pit” in her is her Pagan poetry or forbidden love. Hester fits the “darkest pit” metaphor; as well, for she goes through this conflict of knowing that it is wrong for her to love Dimmsdale more than she loves God--I had to throw in the Protestant message in, due to the fact that it is Hawthorne’s writing; it gives the motive of why Hester suffers; Björk never accomplishes that it would be rather interesting to find out why the love hurts her. Finally, Hester like Björk go through their manly urges of wanting to “hand [themselves] over”; though the lyrics never clarify if Björk goes on with her urges and becomes romantically entangled with him ( I am sure that she does), in the novel Dimmsdale declares his sin to the whole colony, having fathered Hester Prynne’s daughter , only to die later but not before declaring that he loves Hester. NewWaveWitch, I really like your body art comparison it sure makes a lot of sense when you apply it to the video!