Textual analysis : Anne Hathaway

In considering the title the read reader may wonder why is the poem entitled “Anne Hathaway”( just a name and surname). Consequently the naïve reader may be curious to find out about Anne Hathaway.

Just looking at the layout the reader can note the poem is arranged into Shakespearian sonnet form: indeed it is made up of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet.

With a first reading it comes on surface that the speaking voice is not the poet’s voice, but the one of the dramatis personae. The rhyme scheme is ABAB for the quatrains and CC for the couplet.

The first stanza introduce the situation: the setting is the bed where Shakespeare and his wife loved in. It is presented in naturalistic form: “forest,castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas ” : the metaphor expresses the magic of Shakespeare and his wife love, the strenght of their feelings. The word “spinning” conveys the idea of movement and speed, also increased by the alliterative sound of “w”, on line three and it gives the idea of what went on in the bed. Moreover the iambic pentameter reinforce the idea of movement. The bed become the sea where they would dive for pearls , the set of their pursuit of pleasure. The speaking voice puts into focus Shakespeare’s words and compares them to “shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses” to describe the effect on Anne Hathaway : Shakespeare’s words are like kisses on Anne’s body. The metaphor magnify Shakespeare’s words.
The speaking voice speaks about William Shakespeare and his wife like they are common people who are making love in their bed, but at the same time she speaks about what a famous poet Shakespeare was.
The stanza ends with a run-on-line

The second stanza is full of metaphors and literary language: the speaking voice compares her body to a “softer rhyme”, his touch to “a verb dancing in the centre of a noun”, clearly allusion to sexuality of the two. The message the stanza conveys is the importance of literature for Shakespeare. The wife probably know it and for this reason uses such metaphors and hopes to be loved by her husband as well as Shakespeare loves literature. Anne says that she sometimes dreamed that Shakespeare had written her, wishing that she herself were part of his artistic creation. It leads the reader think she want to be remembered. The use of simple past indicates the fact is Anne’s memory. Once more, the stanza ends with a run-on-line.

In the third quatrain she metaphorically imagines the bed as ‘a page beneath his writer’s hands’: she totally gives herself to his husband.
She sees their lovemaking as drama enacted through ‘touch’, ‘scent’ and ‘taste’. She plays on the contrast between sexuality and language.
The stanza focuses on the contrast of the description of how their guest and they live their intimacy: their guests “dozed on, / dribbling their prose”, they have no passion (clearly contrary to they).
Now comes the most important alliteration of the poem: “My living laughing love”. The cadence of the verse conveys the happiness and the affection.

The couplet reinforces the concept presented in line eight: the acknowledgement that his husband can only live on in her imagination because he is dead. In fact the speaking voice describes her head as a “casket” for keeping his memory close to her.
The final line compares this act to the way in which Shakespeare held Anne so lovingly in that second-best bed.

The poem has clearly not been written during the Renaissance because courtly love code has been overturned: renaissance writers could not refer so explicitly to sexuality. Poetess’ ability is to recreate the renaissance atmosphere by referring to astronomy and geography. Furthermore the poetess is able , by using a pretest, to speak about Shakespeare’s language of love.