This poem is taken from a collection by Carol Ann Duffy called “The World’s
Wife”. 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. This particular poem seems extraneous to Duffy's collection as a
whole. Firstly, the themes it tackles are not the dominance of masculinity over
femininity, nor are they fundamentally in regards to patriarchy. The poem
portrays both genders are equal in the relationship, although the use of "I
dreamt he'd written me" again challenges the phallocentric origin of language.
The emjambment of "I held him" and "he held me" portrays how both are
equivocal to each other and a sense of equality is restored.
Anne Hathaway: Shakespeare’s wife. Like Mrs
Midas, this poem gives voice to and empowers
the female figures from the narrative of our
past – looking to the female perspective.
Much of the imagery in this poem is sexual and allows us to see the
relationship between husband and wife as one that is both spiritually and
physically fulfilling. She creates a fantasy landscape where Shakespeare’s
writing and his love for Anne are intertwined. The idea of a bed being a
‘spinning world’ is striking and starts the poem off at a giddying
pace. Duffy neatly presents the bed as a microcosmic centre of an
imaginative, expansive universe ‘of forests, castles, torchlight,
clifftops, seas’ suggesting, at the very least, the plays As You Like
It, Macbeth, Hamlet and The Tempest.
Erotic image emphasising the physicality of relationship: Metaphor
suggests oral sex with Anne Hathaway as well as reminding us that
he was the man who wrote Ariel’s song in The Tempest. *
Hathaway states that her lover’s words ‘echo’ as ‘assonance’ in
her head. The words ‘on’, ‘body’, ‘softer’, ‘to’, ‘echo’,
‘assonance’, ‘touch’ and ‘noun’ are all linked by assonance; the ‘o’
sound does indeed echo through the lines as a softer rhyme.
Shooting stars: associated with wishes: suggests his talent as
writer was energetic, beautiful and rare: become kisses: she
feels her wishes fulfilled. Note link of sibilance
Structure: very loose sonnet form: 14 line and final rhyming couplet. Mostly iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote sonnets of iambic
pentameter but with a much more disciplined structure.Shakespeare’s famous sonnet 18, beginning ‘Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day?’ and ending with ‘So long lives this and this gives life to thee’, voices the commonly held view that humans
might die but a work of art can last forever, effectively immortalising its s ubject.
half-rhyme, something in keeping with the ‘softer rhyme’ mentioned at the end of line 5 of this poem.
Change in sonnet form: reflects how Duffy is attempting to deconstruct patriarchal structures of language, paticularly as Shakespeare
wrote particularly in the sonnet form. Her 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.
familiar tone and the manner in which Anne Hathaway enthuses about
her dead husband. Despite its apparent simplicity, Duffy uses a rich
complexity of ideas relating to language, relationships and
The poem relies on double meanings very like those we find in Shakespeare's own work.
Shakespeare’s work.
Anne Hathaway
‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed…’
(from Shakespeare’s will)
Busy picture with a long list of images:
relationship is heady and exhilarating
To be left a ‘second best bed’ is not generally felt to have been complimentary. But Anne
Hathaway’s version of events reveals that she was very much in love with her husband.
Theirs was a marriage of equality. He left her his second best bed because it was the one in
which they had enacted in a very real sense the drama of their relationship. Carol Ann Duffy
uses her poem to try and challenge these stereotypical assumptions about Shakespeare’s wife. She
reimagines the gift of the second best bed, not as a petty demonstration of marital discontent, but as
the place where husband and wife experienced their most romantic and intimate moments.
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
lines are only loosely joined together through assonance, for example
“world” and “words”. The lines are softly and subtly joined together, as if
to echo the physical relationship between Anne and Shakespeare.
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
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.
Many refs to literary features to create an extended metaphor relating skill of writer to that of lover: coupled with gentle words:
increases impact in romantic, sensual way. The description of Sh akespeare’s touch as ‘a verb dancing in the centre of a noun’ creates
a vital impression of joyous action. It is sexually suggestive in that his hands could be ‘dancing’ in the ‘centre’ of his wi fe. The line
also alerts us to one of Shakespeare’s most famous means of energising language; he would often turn nouns into verbs. For
example, in The Winter’s Tale Perdita says, ‘I’ll queen it no inch further.’ In a practically poetic sense, then, Shakespeare was able to
find verbs in the centre of nouns. The fact that Duffy associates him with action, reflects the stereo -typical view of males at the time,
but her association with nouns and naming is more significant, given the power of naming through history
describes her husband as a ‘lover’ (line 3), suggesting
that their physical relationship was vital and exciting.
This is given further emphasis by the words ‘spinning’,
‘shooting’, ‘dancing’ and ‘laughing’. The vitality of their
sexual union fits in well with the sort of people we might
expect Anne and her husband to be. “My” conveys sense
of pride and possession
In keeping with the expression of a separate identity, Anne
Hathaway is presented as someone who is able to use words in an
impressively poetic way. In this sense her personality rhymes with
her husband’s. She refers to her body being a ‘softer rhyme’ to
Shakespeare. Here, Duffy is subtly relating the poetic techniques of
masculine rhyme and feminine rhyme to the actual lives of two
people who could hardly be separated from art: ‘kisses’ at the end
of line 4 is a feminine ending; ‘touch’ is a masculine one. This
explicit use of linguistic and poetic terms draws attention to the
self-conscious artifice of the persona’s utterance, as well as the
poet’s.
Enjambment is used to allow the lines to flow into each other, again implying the deep and intricate
connection that existed between Anne and Shakespeare. The sibilance in lines such as “shooting stars
which fell to earth as kisses”, allow Duffy to evoke the sense of Shakespeare’s words sweeping across
the sky in an arc that begins and ends with Anne. The alliteration in “living laughing love” allows the
words to dance across the page, suggesting the effervescence of the poetic relationship between the
pair and is suitably juxtaposed with the dull “dribbling” of the prose of the guests. The poem contains
a great deal of verbs such as “dancing”, “dive”, “dozed” and “dribbling”. The verbs help to suggest
that the couple’s relationship is an active and passionate one.
Metaphors are consistent with Shakespeare’s occupation but they
also make a forceful statement about the imaginative power of his
wife. She desires him so much that she would like to have been
one of his dramatic creations. The bed as site of dramatic action is
there as a blank for her husband’s imagination to be unleashed
upon. Visually, sheets could easily be thought of as paper in this
context.
It was customary in Shakespeare’s time to give up the best bed in the
house for guests. Anne relishes remembering that the ‘guests
dozed on’ while she and William made love. The derogatory
‘dribbling their prose’ (line 12) is contrasted sharply with ‘My
living laughing love’. The lilting alliteration and the cadence of
the verse at this point convey extreme happiness and affection.
This contrasts with the d, b and p, sounds in ‘dozed’, ‘dribbling’
and ‘prose’. The impression created is that the guests live an
inferior life of prose. Shakespeare often gave low status
characters prose to speak.
The fact that she describes her head as a ‘casket’, a strongbox for
keeping jewels and other precious items, indicates the deep love
and affection she had for her husband. The consonance on ‘hold’
and ‘held’ recalls that the lovers rhymed with each other when
alive, while the tense-change poignantly signals the irrevocable
change brought about by her husband’s death. The final, clinching
rhyme of ‘head’ and ‘bed’ indicates that Anne Hathaway is able to
keep love alive in her memory and imagination. We are left with
Anne Hathaway cherishing the memory of being with her husband
in ‘that next best bed’. Their true intimacy is made clear here as
only she would have been able to interpret correctly
Shakespeare’s intention when he wrote the famous bequest in his
will. His will, in every sense, is hers.
Sexual dream: sexually confident woman. He
writes her – his touch brings her to life: his
prowess as writer and lover. Romance and
drama: relationship is exciting and
adventurous: 3 sense listed
Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
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 –
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Carol Ann Duffy
Holding each other – it was more than just sex
This sonnet, then, is a poem about a poet by a poet, with the
intermediary being the subject’s surviving partner. Carol Ann Duffy is
using this thrown voice as a means of celebrating the subject,
Shakespeare.
She is his ultimate muse, not just inspiring him to produce great
works but actually becoming them. Rather than living in an
atmosphere of hostility, the couple lives in a world of “romance and
drama”, brought into being through their physical and emotional
love for each other. The blurring of the distinction between life
and art is again inherent in this section of the poem. The
subsequent ‘Romance / and drama played by touch, by scent,
by taste’ is heavily erotic, concentrating on sensory
exploration and not language itself. Lines 8–10 use theatrical
imagery to powerful effect in presenting a scene of
lovemaking. The word ‘drama’ makes reference to plays in
general as well as to love, while ‘Romance’, one of the
categories into which some of Shakespeare’s plays are placed,
also reminds us that this relationship is not stale.
Abrupt and non-descript tone: “the other” – the concept of it being
the best, added only as a brief passing comment. Lack of description
contrasts to elaborate symbolic images of lovers. Adjectives “dozed”
and “dribbling” have neg. conns. and create images of a dull laborious
relationship – and unskilful lovers.
Alliterative: “living” – his memory lives on; “laughing”
– happiness; “love” – her only (before and after)
The dash preceding the conclusion of the poem acts as
something of a dramatic gesture and separates the descriptions
of Shakespeare alive with Anne’s acknowledgement that he can
only live on in her imagination now that he is dead.
The rhyming couplet conforms to the Shakespearean model but
it does not introduce a new rhyme. By recalling ‘bed’ in line 8,
the persona’s preoccupation with her physical relationship is
brought to the reader’s attention. This rhyme is, incidentally,
masculine so we are aware of a female voice giving her husband
something of a ghostly, lasting presence in its use.
Theme: This is a marriage where the couple create their own romance, one that does not involve conforming to other people’s expectations. The poem allows the reader
an insight into a relationship of mutual love and respect, where the couple create a retreat from the rest of the world through poetry, a world which is symbolised by the
second best bed. The power of literature and the imagination is hence a central idea in the poem. Another theme that runs through the poem is Anne’s loss of her
husband and her genuine grief. Although Duffy gives Anne a voice, she actually subverts the reader’s expectations through the emotions expressed by the character. This
is in contrast to another poem by Carol Ann Duffy, “Havisham”, where Miss Havisham from Great Expectations remains bitter and vengeful towards the lover who jilted
her. There is no such anger or resentment in this poem, only a widow grieving a beloved husband. “Anne Hathaway” allows us a different perspective of Shakespeare, a
man sometimes represented as a philandering husband who put his writing above all else. We instead perceive him as a devoted husband, who saw writing not as
something separate to marriage, but as something deeply embedded within it. Therefore another key theme in the poem is the true identity of William Shakespeare, a
man about whom scholars still know surprisingly little. By presenting this poem in the voice of Anne Hathaway, Duffy wants us to appreciate that Anne was a central part
of his life, as well as a passionate, creative and articulate woman in her own right.
*Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
The spirit Ariel is leading Ferdinand, using magic - and this
poem is part of his incantation. Ferdinand is being persuaded
that his father drowned in the wreck (not true!) as he is
led...And it's saying that his insides to his outsides are being
changed by the sea into something that fits the sea. That he
himself doesn't fade into nothing, but changes into something
altogether different.
This poem is taken from “The World’s Wife”,
dramatic monologues (spoken by a
character) from the point of view of women
who have not had a voice in the past.
Structure: very loose sonnet form: 14 line and final rhyming couplet in
iambic pentameter. Duffy takes and changes the traditional form
used by males to declare their love, for her own use to express
the power of her female character.
Themes: love, imagination, literature
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway: Shakespeare’s wife.
‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed…’
Such a gift would have been seen as uncomplimentary but
Duffy turns it around in her poem, showing it to be the special
place of their love-making.
(from Shakespeare’s will)
Metaphor transforms the bedroom into the exciting, adventurous
romantic world. Implication is that Shakespeare’s imagination( by
allusions to Shakespeare’s plays) is shared with her and becomes
part and parcel with their love-making
lines loosely joined through assonance: eg “in” and “spinning”
“world…forests…torchlight…words”, and alliteration:
“where…would…words were”
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
Sexual implications and allusion to Ariel’s song in “The
Tempest” (Act I, Scene 2). Image of magical
transformation of imagination into reality
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
Sound mirroring sense: a softer rhyme: “kisses” and “his”,
“now” and “noun” as well as “assonance” also in the
repeated ‘o’ sounds
Metaphor of her body as softer rhyme to his continues the
metaphor related to words and shows the lovers connected,
in their relationship, like rhyme in the same poem. But their
difference , reflecting the male and female, portrays her as
softer, and an echo , like assonance. He is associated with
action, “a verb”, at the centre of her being,“ a noun”
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.
Heightened sexual imagery of “diving for pearls”, “kisses” and “his
touch… dancing in… [her] centre”
Metaphor of words as stars which transform to kisses: further
elaborates the previous image suggesting the connection
between the imagination and physical reality which cannot be
separated. Shooting stars: associated with wishes, beauty and
rarity: become kisses: her wishes come true. Sibilance is
sizzling
‘spinning’, ‘shooting’, ‘dancing’: show the physical vitality of
the relationship
Anne also uses very innovative imagery, ‘echoing’ Shakespeare but
forging the language of conceit in her own way. The imagery
develops from being implicitly about words, to words as subject and
finally, to words as the centre of the image itself. Where “wo rds”
turned to “kisses”, now “touch” turns to words. The image also
shows her power: where before the focus was Shakespeare’s
imagination and words, now his touch is transformed by her into
words. Words and actions are interchangeable: both art and life ha ve
the same weight in reality
Enjambment from kisses onwards (4-7) connects the lines (as they
are connected as a couple) but also provide a softening afterthought to the strong word at the end of the line, in keeping with
the softer echo: eg “kisses” then “on these lips”
Imagery of imagination and words continues into the second
half of the poem but in less exotic, more muted expression. This
is in keeping as the poem makes the transition from physical and
imaginative vitality to revelation of the idea behind the second
best bed and finally to expression of loss and grief.
The vision is hers but attests to his creative power
bringing her into existence by his writing.
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.
Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
Theatrical imagery of the imagination but grounded
again in the physical reality of the senses.
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
Guests do not live a heightened existence of poetry but a
somnambulant life of prose.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love –
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
Metaphor: “casket” also holds jewels and precious
things.
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Carol Ann Duffy
Non-descript “other” shows it to be nothing special and
“the best” is added as an after-thought.
Alliteration: “living” – his memory lives on; “laughing”
– happiness; “love” – what he is to her. The soft, fluid
‘L’ sounds add to the liveliness and contrast with the
heavy dull sounds ( d, b and p) used to describe the
guests who don’t really live their lives but are asleep.
The dash creates a dramatic pause to stress the contrast
between the vitality of their living relationship to the
realisation that he can only live on in her mind.
Holding each other – it was more than just sex
The rhyming couplet emphasises the equality of
imaginative and physical aspects of the relationship.