The "World's Wife" (York Notes Advanced) |
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Carol Ann Duffy
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Pages: 135 (Paperback)
ISBN: 1405861851
Pub: Longman
Pub date: 2007-08-30
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 58223
Editorial Review:
Elvis's wimpled sister rocks on in a convent she calls Graceland; Nancy Sinatra gets out her boots made for walking with the Kray Sisters; Mrs Midas misses the touch of her now dangerous golden-handed husband; and Queen Herod decrees the killing of each mother's son to protect her baby daughter in Carol Ann Duffy's startling new collection The World's Wife. Doubling is one of the most common themes--and stylistic ploys--of Western culture and thought, and the concept around which Duffy has ingeniously organised this profoundly playful collection. Mrs Midas, Mrs Aesop, Mrs Darwin, Frau Freud, Anne Hathaway, Mrs Rip Van Winkle, the Kray Sisters; these are some of the wives, and sisters, whose stories are told. These inventive, metaphorically precise poems offer much more, however, than just a recovery of the historical voice of her (supposedly) silenced indoors. Duffy dexterously rewrites Judao-Christian and classical mythologies, subverts fairytale and zestfully reinterprets the more modern myths of Darwin and Freud.
Humour is the abundant keynote of this accessible collection. Mrs Rip Van Winkle enjoys the freedom to travel and paint allowed by her husband's permanent slumbers, "Until the day / I came home with pastel of Niagara / and he was sitting up in bed rattling Viagra." Frau Freud analyses her over-exposure to "ding-a-ling, member and jock, / of todger and nudger and percy and cock," and confesses with irony to being, "as au fait with Hunt-the Salami / as Ms M. Lewinsky." Mrs Aesop groans about her husbands unstoppable garrulousness: "By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory," and Mrs Darwin evolves the following summary her husband's research:
"7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him--
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you."
The World's Wife throws open the windows on the stuffy annals of historical myth and breezes through some of its highlights with a sense of revelry and laugh-out-loud observation. In this wry take on the historical ubiquity of heterosexual coupledom that permeates so many cultural myths, Duffy has separated vibrant women from the shadows of their more famous husbands and brothers, and divorced them from the distortions of historical silence. --Rachel Holmes
Reader Reviews:
Poetry By Numbers (0/0 people found this helpful)
Carol Ann Duffy is one of the foremost poets in British Poetry in the twenty-first century. And therein lies the first of many problems I have with her.
'Academic' concerns, such as mythology and history are all over this book, yet being an academic is not a prerequisite of being a poet.
Her poetry here (and in everything else she's done) is trite, cliched, and gender-specific, whilst it also tries too hard to be funny. Being able to look up a few reference books to find information about various women throughout history does not a poet maketh.
Besides which, the poetry itself is stilted, obscure, awkward, lazy, and badly written. Carol Ann Duffy treads the same path as just about every single other poet who is published in Britain today; they give the publishers exactly what the PUBLISHERS want, rather than actually writing poetry that more than a few individuals can relate to. But who are these arrogant individuals and what makes them qualified to judge what constitutes 'good' poetry? I suspect that class plays a big part... The poetry business is full of nauseating back-slapping and sycophancy, despite the fact that the number of people actually buying poetry is at an all-time low. Wonder why?
Fantastic (0/0 people found this helpful)
I truly adore this owmna and the way she wites.
She cuts to the quick with the emtions of some of her characters, especially with resentment, which features in a lot of her poems in this book.
Take a close look at Delilah and Mrs Aesop, both absolutely extarordinary poems.
Brilliantly creative and entertaining (0/0 people found this helpful)
I loved this collection of poems, written from the perspective of real or imagined wives or other females connected to famous males from history, myth or fairy tale. There's a wonderful variety of tone, from Mrs Herod's raddled old rouée, waking up with John the Baptist's head in her morning-after-the-night-before bed, to Penelope, for whom Odysseus' return is a tedious interruption to the world-making creativity of her weaving. The Kray Sisters, Pope Joan, Mrs Quasimodo - all are beautifully brought to life by Duffy's deft and imaginative strokes. By turns wistful, menacing, contemptuous or just weary of their men, Duffy's women give us a multifaceted glimpse into a world where women's ways of knowing and being displace men from the spotlight to the shadows. Brilliant.
My Favourite (0/0 people found this helpful)
I absolutely love this collection!!!! It consists mainly of the story behind male mythological figures in which Duffy inverts and presents herself as their wife or lover. Or simply female figures with an interesting tale. The brutal language and matter of fact tone make it perfect for female readers who are sick of men!!! A definite must!!!
History and legend... rom the untold perspective (0/0 people found this helpful)
This is my absolute favourite book of poetry and I liked it so much I had to go out and buy it for all my female friends. The way Duffy twists the tales to bring out the women's point of view is classy, and they are almost all very funny. She brings a number of the legends and their wives into more contemporary settings, which adds an underlying and subtle humour to everything else she says.
My personal fave is Mrs Aesop. I won't tell you what she ends up doing to Mr A, but only say that everyone who had to listen to his sanctimonious tales with annoying morals will laugh last, and loudest.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Poetry, Drama & Criticism -> History & Criticism -> Novels & Novelists -> 19th Century
Books -> Subjects -> Poetry, Drama & Criticism -> History & Criticism -> Study Guides -> York Notes Advanced
Books -> Subjects -> Poetry, Drama & Criticism -> Poetry -> Poets, A-Z -> ( C-D ) -> Duffy, Carol Ann
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> D -> Duffy, Carol Ann
Books -> Subjects -> Study Books -> A, AS level & International Equivalent Qualifications -> A & AS Level -> English -> Literature
Books -> Subjects -> Study Books -> Undergraduate & Postgraduate -> Arts & Humanities -> Literature & Drama -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)