Anne Hathaway

Story:

Anne Hathaway was the wife of Shakespeare, world renowned for his poetry and extensive playwriting. They married in 1582. If you type into Wikipedia Anne Hathaway, the page will come up with (Shakespeare's Wife) in brackets. Apparently, that's all she's famous for - little was known about their relationship.

In Shakespeare's will, he wrote "Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed"

Structure:

Anne Hathaway is written as a Shakespearean sonnet, with fourteen lines, which can be split into two quatrains and a sextet, finishing with a rhyming couplet. Being that she is Shakespeare's wife, were we really expecting anything different? 

Sonnets are usually love poetry, which sets this poem apart from most of the poems within The World's Wife, which have a very critical opinion of men and their relationships with women.

Closer Reading:

- "The bed we loved in was a spinning world" Shakespeare was the world to Anne. "forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas" They are together everywhere. The second best bed is a magical place.

- Anne Hathaway uses lots of literary techniques and terminology when writing her sonnet to Shakespeare, mirroring his own poetic style. For example she says "my body now a softer rhyme" and "his touch/a verb dancing in the centre of a noun." The way she uses this terminology suggests that both she and William were a perfect match, they fit together like his words on a page. 

- "In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,/dribbling their prose." - She justifies the fact that she is given the second best bed. The best bed would have been reserved for guests only, so Anne and William would have shared their passionate nights in the second best bed. Will's will could be ambitious and suggest that Anne was "second best" but really, the second best bed to him, was the best bed. "Prose" is seen as boring in Anne's eyes, compared to the sonnets and plays she has heard in bed with William.

- Anne idolises her husband. "My lover's words/were shooting stars which feel to earth as kisses". He is precious to her, shown by this metaphor. She emphasises the happiness that resides within their relationship, also, by alliteration: "My living, laughing, love". As said, this is a very different opinion of men compared to the other poems within the anthology. Instead of being critical, Anne is complimenting Shakespeare's greatness at both writing and loving. 

- "I hold him in the casket of my widow's head/ as he held me upon that next best bed." - the final rhyming couplet shows that Anne will always remember and appreciate her husband, dead or alive. She doesn't feel disappointed with being left the second best bed, but instead relishes in the memories. 

Themes:

Anne Hathaway is showing an uncontrollable love for her husband, much like Demeter for her daughter, in Demeter. Both poems are a type of sonnet and show themes of love instead of jealously, failed marriage and corruption within the male species.