What do you know about William Shakespeare? Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April 1564 and died on 23rd April We know that he was baptised on 26th April 1564 and scholars now believe that he was born on April 23rd. He therefore died on his fifty-second birthday. During his life, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. This means an average 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in His last play The Two Noble Kinsmen is reckoned to have been written in 1613 when he was 49 years old. While he was writing the plays at such a pace he was also conducting a family life, a social life and a full business life, running an acting company and a theatre. What do you know about William Shakespeare? Few people realise that apart from writing his numerous plays and sonnets, Shakespeare was also an actor who performed many of his own plays as well as those of other playwrights. During his life Shakespeare performed before Queen Elizabeth I and, later, before James I who was an enthusiastic patron of his work. Some scholars have maintained that Shakespeare did not write the Shakespeare plays, with at least fifty writers having been suggested as the real author. However, the evidence for Shakespeares having written the plays is very strong. What do you know about William Shakespeare? An outbreak of the plague in Europe resulted in all London theatres being closed between 1592 and As there was no demand for plays during this time, Shakespeare began to write poetry, completing his first batch of sonnets in 1593, aged 29. Shakespeare has been credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing almost 3,000 words to the English language. Estimations of his vocabulary range from 17,000 to a dizzying 29,000 words at least double the number of words used by the average conversationalist. What do you know about William Shakespeare? According to Shakespeare professor Louis Marder, Shakespeare was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over 7,000 of them more than occur in the whole King James Version of the Bible only once and never again. Were going to look at one of Shakespeares love sonnets, before looking at a modern sonnet about Shakespeares wife. Shakespearean Sonnets - Structure There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each. In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg. Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. Quatrain 1 Quatrain 2 Quatrain 3 Couplet Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. establishes a theme or problem Resolution Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. Rhyme Scheme ABABABAB CDCDCDCD EFEFEFEF G Now that you know more about the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet, you are going to work in groups to work out the correct structure of the muddled up sonnet which you have been given. Remember the rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. Heres a clue to start you off: the first line is My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; SONNET 130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. Rhyme Scheme ABABABAB CDCDCDCD EFEFEFEF G Now can you match up the muddled modern version with the correct lines of the sonnet? My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips; If snow is white, then her breasts are a brownish gray; If hairs are like wires, hers are black and not golden. I have seen damask roses, red and white [streaked], But I do not see such colours in her cheeks; And some perfumes give more delight Than the horrid breath of my mistress. I love to hear her speak, but I know That music has a more pleasing sound. I've never seen a goddess walk; But I know that my mistress walks only on the ground. And yet I think my love as rare As any woman who has been misrepresented by ridiculous comparisons. So, what is Shakespeare saying in this sonnet? This sonnet is generally considered a humorous parody of the typical love sonnet and plays an elaborate joke on the conventions of love poetry common to Shakespeares day. The sonnet compares the speakers lover to a number of other beautiesand never in the lovers favour. Its message is simple: the dark lady's beauty cannot be compared to the beauty of a goddess or to that found in nature, for she is but a mortal human being. Shakespeare says that she is not a goddess and is not as beautiful as things found in nature, another typical source of inspiration for the average sonneteer. Yet the narrator loves her nonetheless, and in the closing couplet says that in fact she is just as extraordinary ("rare") as any woman described with such exaggerated or false comparisons; he insists that love does not need these conceits in order to be real; and women do not need to look like flowers or the sun in order to be beautiful. It is this blunt but charming sincerity that has made sonnet 130 one of the most famous in the sequence. Anne Hathaway Carol Anne Duffy Background and Narrative Voice: Anne Hathaway was William Shakespeare's wife. Background and Narrative Voice: She was seven years his senior and already pregnant when the 18-year-old Shakespeare married her. Shakespeare left for her their second best bed in his will. While a lot of Shakespeare scholars assume that this was a sign that Shakespeare didn't love her, Duffy interprets the will differently in the poem. The second best bed in "Anne Hathaway" is a symbol of love and devotion. ' Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed...' (from Shakespeare's will) The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed. Form and Structure: Duffy's Anne Hathaway is a sonnet spoken in the voice of Anne Hathaway. Because Duffy imagines the speaker as one distinct character, we can call this poem a dramatic monologue. It follows the most basic sonnet rule in that it has fourteen lines. However, it breaks a lot of rules. It has no formal rhyme scheme and its meter isnt always exactly iambic pentameter. Form and Structure: Fittingly, Duffy employs the sonnet form so adored by Shakespeare. This 14-line structure is often associated with love poetry, and is highly appropriate given the subject matter of the poem. Shakespearean sonnets contain three quatrains and a couplet. (A quatrain is a stanza of exactly four lines, often with an alternating rhyme pattern.) The rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The quatrains usually present the key ideas explored by the poet with the resolution or 'volta' (an Italian term which literally translates as: the turn) arriving in the couplet. Form and Structure: In the poem, Duffy quite literally employs a softer rhyme with a much more relaxed, less restrictive rhyme scheme, combined with overtly sensual, erotic language and imagery. She uses a regular meter but her deliberate choices of assonance and alliteration are designed to imitate the random touching made during love making, so that it is almost as though the words themselves are grazing each other. Form and Structure: Duffy makes frequent use of enjambment in the poem to show how freely and without obstruction love flowed between the couple, as well as to place emphasis on important words or phrases. The entire poem is a metaphor comparing the couples love making to the process of artistic and poetic creativity. Comparing Sonnet 130 and Anne Hathaway In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare compares his mistress to the standards normally required of women in poetry, and concludes that even though she is not the divine goddess other poets write about, to him she is just as beautiful in spite of, or maybe even because of, her human imperfections. Anne Hathaway is about a marriage where the couple create their own romance, one that does not involve conforming to other peoples expectations. The poem allows the reader an insight into a relationship of mutual love and respect, where the couple create a retreat from the rest of the world through poetry, a world which is symbolised by the second best bed. The power of literature and the imagination is hence a central idea in the poem. The poem creates significance around the bed which can only be truly understood by the couple themselves. The poem is hence in one sense about reinventing material objects. Comparing Sonnet 130 and Anne Hathaway Another theme that runs through the poem is Annes loss of her husband and her genuine grief. A reader might perhaps expect Anne Hathaway to be angry and resentful, permanently overshadowed and side-lined by her husband, but Duffys Anne is only full of admiration and love for her husband, cherishing her precious memories that nobody else can share. Although Duffy gives Anne a voice, she actually subverts the readers expectations through the emotions expressed by the character. Now you are going to annotate your copy of the poem. Make sure you take detailed notes to help you with revision. ' Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed...' (from Shakespeare's will) The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed. 'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed...' (from Shakespeare's will) The poem begins with an epigraph taken directly from Shakespeares will. An epigraph is a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme. Despite being a man of some considerable property, he leaves his wife only his second best bed. 'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed...' (from Shakespeare's will) While some critics have viewed this as an insult, Duffy presents a new perspective, using the bed as a metaphor for the intense passion and romance shared by the couple. The second best bed was in fact the couples marital bed, while the best was reserved for guests. Duffy imagines, then, that this legacy was the playwrights last romantic gesture. Duffy gets us to question the judgements we make on first impressions. The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses Suggests speed, exhilaration & excitement. The reader is immediately transported to a magical landscape filled with metaphor, especially appropriate given that Shakespeare himself was the master of this technique. Their love made Anne dizzy and was all encompassing. Interestingly, despite bearing him three children, the persona of Anne created by Duffy makes no reference to this aspect of her marriage. She focuses on their relationship as lovers rather than as parents. world emphasises the idea that they meant everything to one another. Past tense represents Hathaways loss The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses Suggests enchantment, magic. The forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas recalls the setting of some of Shakespeares more famous works such as Macbeth, Hamlet and The Tempest, suggesting a link between these iconic works of literature and the poetry which together are echoes of the excitement that took place in this bed. Suggests fairy-tale romance Suggests a carnival atmosphere or celebration Suggests extreme height almost dizzying proximity to danger, dominance The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses Suggests romance as a pearl is an expensive and rare precious stone, and it takes a lot of effort to gather them. Also suggests exotic /unusual and the excitement and adventure in their relationship. In their lovemaking, the couple found something precious and valuable, as implied by the pearls. It suggests that their relationship was filled with treasures. The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses This metaphor continues the intimate, sensual tone and Suggests brightness, magic, specialness which literally seems to fall from the heavens as though a gift from the gods before transforming into the physical touch of a kiss. The metaphor reiterates the fact that theirs was a physical and emotional relationship. Hathaway admired and was seduced by her lovers language and poetry suggests that his language was heavenly, otherwordly, celestial, and beautiful. This suggests Shakespeare spoke affectionately / lovingly to Hathaway and also the intimate nature of his poetry. The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses Enjambment draws our attention to lovers words, emphasising the importance of Shakespeares language Duffy clearly illustrates in this opening quatrain the intensity of the romantic, passionate relationship of the two lovers. on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed verb is personified This starts an extended language / literary metaphor- suggests the lovers connectedness, their sense of belonging to one another and fulfilling each other. Another literary term. It suggests that they are very similar, but also have their own individuality. This deliberate comparison elevates their lovemaking to something poetic and, in doing so, literary or linguistic terms become loaded with sensuality. It suggests her lovers ability to create a verb is an action word. Taken in the context of a physical relationship, this could suggest her lovers ability to bring life. and describes the erotic touch of his hand on her body, suggesting the energy / excitement their intimacy brought her. on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed Anne imagines too that, like the characters in his plays, or like one of his sonnets, Shakespeare has 'written her through their passionate exchanges. She is suggesting that it is only when she regards herself through his eyes and imagination that she feels fully alive. She thinks of herself as his creation; his love made her a complete person she owes everything to him. It is almost as if she is his inspiration. She doesnt just inspire him to create great literature she actually becomes part of it. the bed a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - The reference again to the bed at the end of line eight creates a link to the opening line of the poem and reinforces the symbolic significance of the bed as a representation of their love. The bed is presented as a blank page somewhere to be imaginative and dream. This suggests that she is the recipient of his creativity. This enjambment continues the extended metaphor from the previous quatrain as the bed is compared to the parchment on which the passion and excitement so associated with the playwright was written. a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - All the romance and drama contained in these pages was played out or begun on their bed, and again Duffy implies that the inspiration for his characters and plots came from their lovemaking. The word romance is deliberately placed at the end of the line to emphasise that this is what she most associates with their relationship. Again, Duffy combines Shakespeares literature with his relationship with Hathaway. A sense of excitement and passion in their relationship is suggested. a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - She compares their relationship to actors in a great performance. Again this is very sensual imagery all of the senses are involved in this poem. The senses touch, scent, and taste are employed to reinforce just how vividly she can still recall their lovemaking, as though through immersing herself in these memories she can experience this passion once more. Different senses appealed to indicate again the passion and sensual nature of their relationship. a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - Hathaway imagines the guests in the next room, dribbling their prose, whilst herself and her husband create poetry and drama. There is the sense that others relationships lack the passion and excitement which they have. Sleeping (with a suggestion of laziness), while others are more pleasurably engaged in sexual intercourse. a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - In a withering, disparaging comment she describes others as only capable of dribbling their prose. The implication is clear - poetry symbolises the most skilful and creative use of language while prose by comparison is ordinary, utilitarian and unexceptional. Connotations of old age and messiness compared with the S & Hs apparent creativity and vitality/energy. Others are dull, clumsy and unattractive while they enjoy a relationship filled with drama and romance and which is overwhelming in that it gives every sense pleasure. a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - Alliteration: Emphasises her fondness and love for him. She misses his energy and the sound of him. Reflects the poetic beauty of their relationship. At the end of this quatrain, the dash creates a pause to allow us to reflect on this idea and prepare us for the resolution and the final couplet. suggesting that her lover continues in some ways to exist and survive in her memory. Duffy employs elongated assonance to emphasise again how vividly and clearly the speaker can recall their passion I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed. This final couplet ends with the masculine full rhyme of head and bed to provide a defined conclusion to the poem. This can be seen as a further tribute to Shakespeares own imagination / creativity. It also indicates that only Hathaway ever truly knew her husband. A casket is generally an empty, hollow container or a coffin. Rather than being buried or cremated, Hathaway keeps Shakespeare alive in her mind / imagination. This suggests that she is empty / lost without him, but is trying to hold on tight to his memory. I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed. The metaphor of holding her lover in the protective casket of her imagination reiterates the idea presented in the previous line that, in our way, our memory of a deceased loved one allows their continued existence. Duffy seems to suggest that this is much more fitting than an urn or coffin which, although they may contain the physical remnants of a body, can never capture the energy or vitality of the person's character. By remembering her husband, and replaying her memories of their passion, the speaker is really honouring his true legacy and repaying him for the way that he held her in that next best bed. I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed. The simile in these lines compares her holding on to his memory to him embracing her in their marriage bed. Themes This poem deals with three main themes: passion sensual erotic love death and remembrance. In the poem, Duffy really concentrates on conveying that this was a marriage based on an all-encompassing, deeply physical relationship. She uses the physical legacy of the bed left by Shakespeare to his wife to meditate on this specific aspect of their relationship. In doing so, she presents a couple completely in tune with each other both sexually and emotionally. Fittingly, in a poem about the worlds greatest ever poet and wordsmith, she uses language itself as an extended metaphor to convey the intensity of their passion. As well as emphasising the profound physical connection of the lovers, Duffy also considers that the most fitting way to honour our dead loved ones is by preserving the most enduring, vivid aspects of their character in our memories, thus allowing them to continue to survive. Themes Anne Hathaway allows us a different perspective of Shakespeare, a man sometimes represented as a philandering husband who put his writing above all else. We instead perceive him as a devoted husband, who saw writing not as something separate to marriage, but as something deeply embedded within it. Therefore another key theme in the poem is the true identity of William Shakespeare, a man about whom scholars still know surprisingly little. By presenting this poem in the voice of Anne Hathaway, Duffy wants us to appreciate that Anne was a central part of his life, as well as a passionate, creative and articulate woman in her own right. Themes