All these literary features are used in every poem in The World’s Wife, making 'Anne Hathaway' feel a natural part of the collection. However, The World’s 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 Duffy’s 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 Shakespeare’s 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 Shakespeare’s works. The different surname separates Anne Hathaway’s love from Shakespeare’s works, which were fictional: Shakespeare’s love for Anne was not fictional.
The two lexical chains do touch in places, for instance “the bed a page beneath his writer’s 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 World’s 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”. Samson’s 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 Samson’s claims. This strength contrasts with the emotional weakness he then demonstrates, justifying Delilah’s 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 doesn’t 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.
Even though 'Anne Hathaway' and 'Delilah' are both love poems, they are very different. 'Delilah' offers a new interpretation of famous events. 'Anne Hathaway' merely attempts to explain the polysemic epigraph “Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed...”. Rather than being an insulting gesture, the poem implies that this was romantic, intending to invoke memories of the love that they shared in the second best bed, while guests “dribbled their prose” in the better bed.
In 'Mrs Lazarus' and 'Eurydice', the woman rejoices at separation from her husband. 'Anne Hathaway' is different; Anne remembers Shakespeare passionately: “my living, laughing love” implying that he is still alive within her “widow’s head”. Her love continues after his death, demonstrated by Duffy’s use of the sonnet form. A sonnet traditionally rhapsodies about fictional love and then sums it up at the end in a rhyming couplet. In 'Anne Hathaway', Duffy doesn’t maintain the standard sonnet rhyme scheme, barring the rhyming couplet at the end: she only adheres to the traditional way of summing love up, not rhapsodising about it. This implies that their relationship was physical, built upon a framework of love just as the poem is built on the framework of a sonnet.
'Frau Freud' is also based on a sonnet but is satirical, implying that psychologists are in love with penises. Starting with direct address – “ladies” – it initially appears to be a serious poem, accentuating the bathos when it turns into a rant full of dysphemisms and euphemisms. The idea of an “envious solitary eye” on the penis is an attack on the Freudian theory of every woman wanting a penis, suggesting in fact that every penis wants a woman, hence the lonely connotations of “envious” and “solitary”. Unlike the other poems in this collection, 'Frau Freud' doesn’t feature the man himself at all, suggesting that his individuality has been absorbed by his theories. The final ellipsis suggests that the pity Frau Freud feels for penises, and by inference men, is ongoing. The reference to Bill Clinton through “Ms M. Lewinsky” equally adds a sense of timelessness to the poem, suggesting that his phallic theories are old and the ensuing female frustration everlasting. This is further enhanced by internal rhyme, for instance “winky/Lewinsky”, a feature also used in 'Anne Hathaway'.
While 'Anne Hathaway' shares many of the literary techniques prevalent throughout The World’s Wife, there are some typical Duffy features missing from 'Anne Hathaway'. Most of her poems feature bathos, particularly the euphemisms in 'Frau Freud' and the swearing in 'Delilah'. 'Anne Hathaway' maintains a high register throughout, accentuating the continuity of their love and it’s continued existence after Shakespeare’s death. 'Anne Hathaway' doesn’t contain any similes either, the metaphors imbuing it with a more personal feel than any other in the collection.
On a shallow level, 'Anne Hathaway' is very typical of the collection The World’s Wife. It is written in the same style as the other poems and is based upon a woman describing a famous figure from history. It also adds a new dimension to a man hitherto not realised in quite such a manner. But on a deeper level it is very different. Duffy doesn’t demean Shakespeare. She doesn’t empower Anne. This isn’t a feminist poem, unlike the rest. It is a love poem, pure and simple, and in that respect it is very, very different.
