Anne Hathaway Carol Ann Duffy Overview This poem

‘Anne Hathaway’ Carol Ann Duffy

Overview This poem, like ‘Mrs Midas’, comes from ‘The World’s Wife’, Duffy’s first themed collection of poems. In this set of poems, Duffy considers both real and fictional characters, stories, histories and myths that focus on men, and gives voice to the women associated with them. In this collection, Duffy writes a number of dramatic monologues from the perspective of women who have been traditionally silenced in history, mythology and fiction. A dramatic monologue is a poem that is spoken by a character. The monologues are essentially giving a voice back to these women, and at the same time allowing us to see the men in their lives from a different view point. The poem portrays both genders are equal in the relationship. The enjambment of "I held him" and "he held me" portrays how both are equivocal to each other and a sense of equality is restored. Although ‘Havisham' was published a year earlier, it makes a good comparison with this poem since both take the perspective of a woman living without her lover - Havisham having been jilted at the altar, while Hathaway has been widowed.

Anne Hathaway • Born 1555/56 – Died 6 th of August 1623 • Married William Shakespeare in November 1582. • She was already pregnant with their first child. • She was 7 years older than Shakespeare who was 18 when they married. • Like ‘Mrs Midas’, this poem gives voice to and empowers the female figures from the narrative of our past.

Sonnet Form 14 lines. Often associated with theme of love. A Shakespearean Sonnet consists of 3 quatrains with a set rhyming scheme and a rhyming couplet at the end. The quatrains usually present the key ideas explored by the poet with the resolution or 'volta' (an Italian term which literally translates as: the turn) arriving in the couplet. In the poem, Duffy employs a softer rhyme with a much more relaxed, less restrictive rhyme scheme, combined with overtly sensual, erotic language and imagery. She uses a regular meter but her deliberate choices of assonance and alliteration are designed to imitate the lovers’ caresses, so that it is almost as though the words themselves are grazing each other. Shakespeare wrote sonnets of iambic pentameter but with a much more disciplined structure. Duffy’s choice to subvert the form of the sonnet emphasises that these are the words of his wife and represent her own insight into her husband, an insight that cannot be shared or replicated by anyone else.

Techniques which are used throughout … Metaphor The full poem is a metaphor for their love and passion. The narrator compares their love and sexual relationship to poetry and the art of writing, suggesting that their love is deeper and more meaningful than many critics assumed. Enjambment and unusual rhyming scheme Very few of these lines end with a full stop and the rhyme of this sonnet is not as restricted as a traditional sonnet. This is to mirror the sensuality, fluidity and freedom of their love. The lines tend to end mid sentence but on the most seductive and passionate words.

In their relationship, the couple found something precious and valuable, ‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed…’ as implied by the pearls. This intimate, sensual tone is continued in the (from Shakespeare’s will) metaphor comparing her lover’s words to shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses. The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas Hathaway was seduced by her lover’s language and poetry, which where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words literally seems to fall from the heavens as though a gift from the gods were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses before transforming into the physical touch of a kiss. In this opening quatrain then, Duffy clearly illustrates the intensity of the romantic, passionate relationship of the two lovers. Much of the imagery in this poem is sexual and allows us to see the Duffy imagines, then, that joined this legacy was through the playwright’s last D focuses on the intimacy between the couple. relationship between husband wife as one that is both spiritually Lines are only loosely together assonance, The Fairy-tale/mystical/magical scene/imagery creates the intensity of poem begins with an epigraph taken directly from Describing her husband as a ‘lover’ again suggests their for romantic gesture Theirs was a marriage of equality. He left her his Euphemism/metaphor of ‘diving for pearls. ’ ‘Pearls’ and physically fulfilling. She creates fantasy landscape Sibilance. The ‘s’ sound is soft and seductive just like Shakespeare and example “world” and “words”. Softly and subtly joined together, as Shakespeare’s their love/connection. ‘Spinning’ suggests how intoxicating/allwill. While some critics have viewed this as where an physical relationship was vital and a exciting. This is given second best bed because it was the one in which they had enacted = precious jewels which suggests his deep Shakespeare’s writing a and his perspective, love for Anne are the intertwined. his writing. Could also represent fireworks to suggest the passion in their if to echo their tenderness. insult, consuming their love was – almost as if when together, they were Duffy presents new using bed as The a further emphasis by the words ‘spinning’, ‘shooting’, ‘dancing’ in a very real sense the drama of their relationship. Duffy uses her love/desire for her. idea of a bed being a ‘spinning world’ is striking: Duffy marriage. metaphor transported off to/created some other world together. Long listof for the intense passion and romance shared by neatly the and ‘laughing’. poem then to try and challenge the stereotypical assumptions about presents the bed as a microcosmic centre of an imaginative, Use of half-rhyme confirms this is a more relaxed version of the couple. The second best bed was in fact the couple’s marital bed, images here exemplifies this too – intense, never ceasing etc. Shakespeare’s wife. ‘of She reimagines the torchlight, gift of the clifftops, second best expansive universe forests, castles, seas’ Sonnet and echoes how their relationship was easy and not the while the best was reserved for guests. ‘My’ conveys sense of pride and possession bed, not as a petty demonstration of marital discontent, but as the alluding perhaps to S’s plays ‘As You Like It’, ‘Macbeth’ etc. = a link difficult one it was made out to be after his will was released etc. Use of ‘we’ suggests equality in relationship and their mutual, shared place where husband wife experienced their most romantic and between these iconic works of literature and the poetry their love – both felt the same powerful emotions. intimate moments. created (both literally and metaphorically. )

on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the bed Hathaway states that her lover’s words ‘echo’ as ‘assonance’ In keeping with the expression of a separate identity, Anne Hathaway is Anne too that, ‘on’, like ‘body’, the characters in his plays, in her imagines head. The words ‘softer’, ‘to’, ‘echo’, presented as someone who is able to use words in an impressively The reference again to the bed at the Continuing the language metaphor. Suggesting that she is only feminine Shakespeare has 'written her', suggesting that it is when ‘assonance’, ‘touch’ and ‘noun’ are all linked by assonance; poetic way. In this sense her personality rhymes with her husband’s. end of line eight creates a link to the while Shakespeare was masculine. She was powerless to his touch. she regards herself through his eyes and imagination that she the ‘o’ sound does indeed echo through the lines as a softer She refers to her body being a ‘softer rhyme’ to Shakespeare. This opening line of the poem and Enjambment. She finds his touch exciting and erotic. “dancing” = his feels fully alive. rhyme. Alludes to sexual gratification? deliberate reinforces the symbolic significance of comparison elevates their love to something poetic and, in touch – moving, unpredictable, exciting. A verb = vital to a sentence doing so, literary terms become loaded with sensuality. the bed as a representation of their and here it is imbedded in the noun – can’t function without each other. Also suggests that she barely recognises herself as a separate love. The line also alerts us to one of Shakespeare’s most famous means being anymore – it’s like a dream/feels so far removed from who of Here, Duffy is subtly relating the poetic techniques of masculine rhyme energising language; he would often turn nouns into verbs. They she used to be without him as he is such an integral pat of her and feminine rhyme to the actual lives of two people who could hardly also complete one another – allusion to sex. life/being. Use of ‘now’ suggests life/r. ship with S. was be separated from art: ‘kisses’ at the end of line 4 is a feminine ending; vibrant/intoxicating. ‘touch’ is a masculine one.

The imagery of imagination and words continues into the second half of the poem but with a less exotic, more muted expression. This is fitting as the poem makes the transition from physical and imaginative vitality to the revelation of the idea behind the second best bed and finally to the expression of loss and grief. Her dreaming continues the motif of imagination which ends the poem with his continued life in her memory, and begins the notion of sleep which ends finally in death.

a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love – At the end of this quatrain, Duffy employs elongated alliteration in the In a marked contrast, she compares the poetry and sensuality of their phrase ‘living laughing emphasise how metaphor vividly and r. ship with those who slept in the other bed. In a withering, disparaging The enjambment from line love’ eight to continues the again extended clearly the speaker can recall their passion, suggesting that her lover comment she asserts that they are only capable of dribbling their prose. from the previous quatrain (bed is compared to the parchment on continues in some ways to exist and survive in her memory. which the passion and excitement so associated with the playwright The word ‘romance’ is deliberately placed at the end of The is clear - that poetry (and by extension) was written. ) the implication line to emphasise this is their what r. ship she most The dash creates a skilful pause to allow us to reflect on this while idea prose and symbolises the most and creative use of language associates with their relationship. The senses touch, prepare us for resolution and the final couplet. = a dramatic (relationships of the others) by comparison is ordinary, utilitarian and All the romance and drama contained in these pages was played out scent, and taste are employed to reinforce just how vividly pause to stress their contrast vitality of their living unexceptional. Parenthesis of between ‘the best’ is her mocking those who or begun on their bed, and again Duffy implies that the inspiration for she can still recall relationship, as the though through relationship to the realisation that he now can only live on in her mind. suggest the bed was left from was their inferior, in S’s the creativity supposedly his characters and she plots came love when where immersing herself in these memories she can experience ‘best’ bed it is devoid of passion etc. was then actualised and brought to existence in his work. this passion once more.

I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that next best bed. The metaphor of holding her lover the protective Continued tenderness for in him mirrors casket their of her The final couplet ends with the masculine full rhyme of ‘head’ and ‘bed’ imagination reiterates the idea presented in the previous line that, in tenderness with one another in life: ‘I hold him as he to provide a defined conclusion to the poem and their relationship – our way, our memory of a deceased loved one allows their held me. ’ only through death would they part (contrary to public’s view. ) Final continued existence. rhyme is plosive and harsh and definite just like the end of their Simile – She felt secure in his hold and he held her marriage, through his death and the pain/agony this would have Duffy seems to suggest that this is much more fitting than an urn or tightly as she promises to do to his memory now. caused. coffin which, although they may contain the physical remnants of a body, can never capture the energy or vitality of the person's character. By remembering her husband, and replaying her memories of their passion, the speaker is really honouring his true legacy and repaying him for the way that he held her in ‘that next best bed. ’

It is fitting that Anne Hathaway writes in the form that her husband so famously used. This in itself is an act of homage and, possibly, a means of keeping him alive. Shakespeare’s famous sonnet 18 concludes with ‘So long lives this and this gives life to thee’, which voices the commonly held view that humans might die but a work of art can last forever, effectively immortalising its subject.

Themes • passion • sensual erotic love • death and remembrance In the poem, Duffy concentrates on conveying that this was a marriage based on an all - encompassing, deeply physical relationship. She uses the physical legacy of the bed left by Shakespeare to his wife to meditate on this specific aspect of their relationship. In doing so, she presents a couple completely in tune with each other both sexually and emotionally. Fittingly, in a poem about the world’s greatest ever poet and wordsmith, she uses language itself as an extended metaphor to convey the intensity of their passion. As well as emphasising the profound physical connection of the lovers, Duffy also considers that the most fitting way to honour dead loved ones is by preserving the most enduring, vivid aspects of their character in our memories, thus allowing them to continue to survive.

Links with other poems • ‘Havisham’ - both tell the story of a woman’s life after love/a relationship. • ‘Mrs Midas’ – Both have a famous spouse and are described from the woman’s perspective. • Valentine – Unusual perspective of poet on a topic (Love. ) • ‘Originally’ and ‘War Photographer’ – looking back/reflecting on past experiences to understand who you now are or how you have reached this point. • Use your grid to track the similarities and differences of the poems we have already studied.