Analysis of Carol Ann Duffy's Poem "Anne Hathaway"

In this short analysis, there will be taken a closer look at the poem “Anne Hathaway” published in 1999 by Carol Ann Duffy. This essay will try to show that this poem is a contemporary tribute to Shakespeare's life and writing, this poem was published at the end of the 20th century. Duffy gives this tribute by taking the place of Shakespeare’s wife and giving him a poem of remembrance through the personal memories only a wife could have. Firstly, the beginning of the poem gives us vital information. It names the apparent poetic speaker, Anne Hathaway, through the title of the poem and at the hand of the epigraph preceding the poem it gives us the scene of where the poem takes place, namely the “second best bed”.

When Shakespeare left his wife in his will his “second best bed” the public thought this was a sign that the marriage between Shakespeare and Hathaway was one that left a lot to be desired. Duffy flips this narrative on its head by taking it as a sign of a deeper romance. This takes us to the next step of the identification of the narrator. The poem is a sonnet containing 14 lines and ending on a rhyming couplet “head/bed”, but contrasting the basic Shakespearean sonnet form, this poem does not have the ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme or any formal rhyme scheme with only the combination “world/words” and “seas/kisses” in the first four lines giving it a taste of the standard abab. The meter in this poem is roughly iambic pentameter; this is another sign of a more relaxed use of the Shakespearean form. This gives the reader a sense of playfulness, but also a sense of ignorance; it gives the illusion that the person writing the poem was familiar with the Shakespearean form, but had no knowledge of how to formally put it to use.

The use of poetic imagery is essential in this poem. The poetic metaphors are used in the most passionate parts of the poem, “My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips”, “my body now a softer rhyme” and “his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun”. Academic poetic term used in place for sexual acts. It gives the reader a sense of confusion about the narrator, it’s an entanglement of identity. Is the poet, Duffy, the one speaking here or is it, Hathaway? Two women passionate about one man, confused between different kinds of passion. In “The bed a page between his writer’s hands” it also gives Shakespeare two different identities, the one of the writer and the one of the husband. In the ending couplet, it gives us the answer of how important the identity of the narrator is, the ending couplet gives us the image of a grieving widow while keeping the person being grieved close “I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head ”. It does not matter who this is, because it is unexchangeable, otherwise, Duffy could not have written the poem in such passionate terms. It is as equally important as that Duffy could not have written this poem if she had not grieved Shakespeare's death through the perspective of a poet. The poem looks back at a time where Shakespeare was present in the world of poetry, and there was also a presence of sexuality, for the writer of this poem and for the poetic narrator.

Carol Ann Duffy is a poet that has felt inspired by Shakespeare, though his use of form, imagery but also by his stories. Her poem of tribute is in itself a Shakespearean story, one that can be interpreted in many ways. A homage to Shakespeare’s life that only his wife could tell and a homage to his work that only a poet could write, and something that’s far less boring to read than prose.