The Lost Lectures : Carol Ann Duffy
Selfridges
25th March 2014
Duration : 56 mins
(Carol Ann Duffy; Image via Scottish Poetry Library)
History is steeped in the greatness of men; the Western literary canon proclaims its male authors’ work as timeless and science lauds the contributions of male scientists. Even intelligence has been viewed via a gendered lens, with the common impression being that men are more intelligent than women.
In The World’s Wife, Duffy subverts the predominant notion of men and their thoughts as being superior and more valuable. She imagines the thoughts of the wives of the men who are considered ‘great’ for their work, be it in the field of science or literature. She also examines wives from Western history, folklore and mythology, giving them a voice in a more contemporary setting. Duffy draws them out of the shadows and puts a glowing spotlight on them through her revisionist poems.
Her poems give a voice to a multitude of characters from Mrs. Aesop to Little Red Riding Hood, from Mrs. Tiresias to Demeter, from Mrs. Sisyphus to Penelope, from Pilate’s wife to Delilah. For example, in ‘Mrs. Midas’, the titular character enjoys the smells emanating from her kitchen before Mr. Midas arrives and she realises the curse he has been struck with. In her typical humorous style, Duffy shows Mrs. Midas as being sarcastically positive about his curse helping him to quit smoking:
He tried to light a cigarette; I gazed, entranced,
as the blue flame played on its luteous stem. At least,
I said, you’ll be able to give up smoking for good.
She places her characters in modern settings to help her readers relate to their problems and understand them better. So, the titular character in ‘Mrs. Faust’ gets depicted as a modern, jet-setting wife. While Faust is busy enjoying his new-found power (thanks to his deal with Mephistopheles), Mrs. Faust is happy travelling the world, spending money and finding herself through veganism, yoga and Buddhism. This poem is as much a critique of marriage as it is of capitalism and its fads.
To read the whole article, click HERE.
https://www.thecuriousreader.in/features/carol-ann-duffy-the-worlds-wife/