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ADellaTorca - Analysis of the sonnet "Anne Hathaway"
by ADellaTorca - (2016-11-21)
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Textual analysis of the sonnet “Anne Hathaway” by Carol Ann Duff

From the title the reader can understand that Anne Hathaway is the protagonist of the sonnet. It is arranged into three quatrains and in a final rhyming couplet, so this is the typical structure of Shakespeare’s sonnets. This text is written by Carol Ann Duffy, who adopts the persona of Shakespeare’s wife. In the first quatrain she describes their bed, the symbol of love, as a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight and pearls. The speaking voice also compeers her lover’s words to some shooting stars: so she uses elements of nature to create metaphors to better emphasize their passion. So the intelligent reader can understand that their bed is a really important place for Anne where they would dive for pearls. In the second quatrain the narrator continues to use metaphors: says that her body is a softer rhyme to his. Even if she doesn’t consider herself on the same level of her lover, with these words she gives to the reader the idea that they become a single person. The speaking voice tells also the reader that she dreamed “he'd written”; this is why she creates the comparison between the bed and a page beneath his writer’s hands. In the third quatrain the narrator explains the importance and the centrality of senses: romance plays by touch, by scent and by taste. In the following line, thanks to the alliteration of sound “l”, the narrator connotes the description of her love, Shakespeare. In final rhyming couplet Anne tells the reader that she will hold her lover in her widow’s head, creating a comparison with the the way Shakespeare held Anne upon that next best bed.