the Collection The Worlds Wife Essay Example for Free

the Collection The Worlds Wife Essay Anne Hathaway is written in a very similar style to all the other poems in The Worlds Wife. My lovers words were shooting starts that fell to earth as kisses is a metaphor emphasising the brilliance of his words and implying that they originated in heaven, thus making them perfect. Duffy frequently uses imagery thus. The bed a page beneath his writers hands is an example of figurative language in the semantic field of writing, which is associated with Shakespeare. Similarly, Mrs Aesop is filled with morals such as the pot that called the kettle [black], as fables are what Aesop is remembered for, and Frau Freud is centred around euphemisms for penis, as penis envy was Freuds legacy. This use of subject-specific lexemes is frequently used by Duffy to invoke thoughts of the famous figures concerned. Just as I had wept for a night and a day / over my loss in Mrs Lazarus contains enjambement, very few lines in Anne Hathaway are endstopped, resulting in a flowing syntax emphasising the fluidity of their love. Duffy does, however, use caesura on the line a page beneath his writers hands. Romance and drama , dividing the ensuing romance and drama from Anne dreaming, perhaps implying that she would still have experienced romance and drama without dreaming. Gone home. Gutted the place from Mrs Lazarus is another example of caesura separating actions, this time to express a sense of finality and determination. The descriptive feel of Anne Hathaway is enhanced by Duffys use of declarative sentences. Alliteration in living laughing love expresses happiness, just as feared, famous, friends of the stars is alliterative to show how the Kray Sisters were happy because of their fame. This contented fluidity is further enhanced by assonance other bed, the best, our guests; sibilance by scent, by taste; and fricatives softer rhyme. These makes their love seem continuous, just as the birth in Pope Joan seems unstoppable because of the fricatives and repetition of lifting me, flinging me down All these literary features are used in every poem in The Worlds Wife, making Anne Hathaway feel a natural part of the collection. However, The Worlds Wife is all about feminism; the genitive in the title suggesting that women are possessions and that this is evident across the entire planet. The poems satirise this attitude using hyperbole, for instance making Aesop obsessed with morals, or by twisting history (making the Kray Brothers women). Every poem is a famous story told from the point of view of a woman, often turning the plot of the story around as with Little Red-Cap, or giving the pivotal point of the story to the woman, as with Mrs Darwin. Anne Hathaway is not satirical. Although, as most of Duffys poems are, it is a dramatic monologue, it is not a rant. It is a love poem. Throughout Anne Hathaway there are two separate lexical chains: words such as kisses, lips, hands and body in the semantic field of love and nouns such as words, page, noun and verb in the semantic field of writing. Just as these two chains are clearly separated, so Shakespeares writing was separate from his love. This is emphasised in the title: unlike the other poems in the collection, Anne Hathaway is not entitled Mrs. Shakespeare. The name Shakespeare is associated with Shakespeares works. The different surname separates Anne Hathaways love from Shakespeares works, which were fictional: Shakespeares love for Anne was not fictional. The two lexical chains do touch in places, for instance the bed a page beneath his writers hands. Each time the two themes combine it is to describe more vividly a sensual action, such as the innuendo a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. This is to emphasise how Shakespeare put his whole being and essence into loving Anne Hathaway. There is only one other true love poem in The Worlds Wife: Delilah. The love Delilah feels for Samson is emphasised by the use of polysyndeton, sibilance and alliterative fricatives in slip and slide and sprawl, handsome and huge. Samsons physical strength is represented semantically by the nouns tiger, fire and Minotaur which carry connotations of power and fear. The simple rhyming couplets bear/dare, fear/here bring a feeling of truth and simplicity to Samsons claims. This strength contrasts with the emotional weakness he then demonstrates, justifying Delilahs desire to help him. She is portrayed as very possessive of Samson, my warrior and his head on my lap suggesting that she felt empowered and within her right to act. The simple, isolated sentence I was there implies that she loves the power, as do the adjectives deliberate, passionate. Although in this poem Duffy doesnt represent the woman as being in the right, Duffy at least makes both characters seem more human, lowering Samson from his position of strength and raising Delilah from her baseness.