Carol Ann Duffy's 'Anne Hathaway'

Carol Ann Duffy (1955- )

Rewriting stories was a popular strategy to challenge an overtly masculine version of history. But few writers did it so well as Duffy in ‘The World’s Wife’, a book of poems where the wives of the famous were allowed to speak.

They are mostly long suffering and unimpressed. There was Mrs. Daedalus watching her husband fall to earth, Mrs. Midas equally disgusted, terrified and saddened by her husband’s new skills, Little Red Riding Hood taking the wolf for all he’d got, Mrs. Faust getting the last laugh on the Devil and so on….

This sonnet is unusual in the collection. Unlike the other wives, Anne Hathaway remmembers her husband with affection. Instead of taking the opportunity for a bit of Bard Bashing over that notorious bequest, Duffy produces a love poem. And unlike some of Will’s sonnets, this one needs no explanations.

This is taken from The World’s Wife, Picador 1999