Feminine Gospels

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Asyndeton is once again used across the end of the fourth stanza, Duffy linking together names for Helen. The large number of names people call Helen could further link to her name, her notorious beauty calling the attention of every man.

Themes: loss of control, loss of identity, suffering, society pressure altering women to fit into stereotypes In The World's Wife, her exhilarating collection of flights of fantasy, Duffy sex-changed the heroes of high and pop culture and made old stories shiver with life. On first glance, Feminine Gospels echoes its predecessor, retelling the world through women's eyes: 'The light music of girls... the faint strings/ of the old.' These tall tales, however, subvert life rather than literature, running miles with myths that don't exist but should. They are 'what if?' poems, from a world in which outrage, memory, a desire for babies or white goods can transform one utterly, like a secret Guinness Book of Records for womankind. This stanza focuses on the ‘women’ that ‘ The Long Queen’ reigned over. Duffy again uses an asyndetic list to display the extent of reach, ruling over everyone from ‘girls, spinsters and hags’ all the way to ‘witches, widows, wives, mothers of all these’. Duffy suggests that Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of power and hope for all womenkind, her rule providing support and visibility to all women, equally. The rest of this stanza focuses on the monotony of her game city, Duffy using images of industry. Indeed, ‘railway station’, ’trains’‘operation’ all contain ideas of bleak scenery. Even the trains themselves are personified as ‘sigh[ing] on the platforms’. Duffy presents a grey scene of her home town, the only thing exciting her is ‘pining’ for escape. Be it ‘Glasgow, London, Liverpool’, anything that will allow her to escape from the city she has grown up in. The longest poem in the book is "The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High" and Duffy clearly enjoyed writing it. At one level the poem is a tour de force of sparkle and fizz. A mysterious giggle grows ineluctably into an all-consuming merriment that destroys the whole structure of grammar school propriety. Those who went to such a grammar school, as I did, will recognise the discipline and the drudgery, and recall the passionate longing to escape shared by teachers and students alike. At the same time it is hard to keep out of mind Searle's St Trinian's, or even the hearty attachments of Angela Brazil's captains and head girls. I found the poetry lay mainly in the asides: a teacher on a cold night, watching her own breath, a moment of loving abandon, an evocation of "The world like Quink outside". For all its accomplishment, this was not my favourite poem in the collection.

The Long Queen‘ by Carol Ann Duffy elevates the status of women by focusing on one of the most influential rulers in history. Duffy begins by focusing on the principle of marrying ‘Time’ instead of an actual husband, and Elizabeth focuses on ruling successfully instead of marriage and romance. Duffy then moves through the type of people that Queen Elizabeth rules over, focusing on the blinding quality of being a woman, everyone encompassed within her reign. Duffy explores how the Queen’s ‘laws’: supporting all women, dispelling the fear and shame around periods, ensuring that emotions are shown, and safe childbirth. The final stanza suggests that Queen Elizabeth would have given up everything to extend the voice of women, championing females across her ‘time’ and long into the future. References to Queen Elizabeth I, who rejected various suitors. 'Long Queen' could be seen as patron saint of women, as she rejects most patriarchal standards Feminine Gospels marks the first time in which I have read any of Duffy’s longer poems; some of those collected here are almost of Tennyson length. Her style lends itself incredibly well to these longer works. Throughout, Duffy makes some shrewd observations, and poses some fascinating thoughts and questions; in ‘The Long Queen’, for instance, she asks: ‘What was she queen of? Women, girls, / spinsters and hags, matrons, wet nurses, / witches, widows, wives, mothers of all those’. She praises difference and diversity – for Duffy, all women matter (as, of course, they should in the real world too). Duffy’s ‘The Long Queen’explores the historical figure of Queen Elizabeth I. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she was the monarch that headed the Elizabethan age, in which England become a major European power in both political and artistic spheres. She was a popular queen, having a cordial relationship with Parliament and her subjects looking up to her rule. The first English Epic poem, ‘ The Faerie Queene‘ by Edmund Spenser revolves around Elizabeth I immortalized in the figure of ‘Gloriana’. Duffy draws upon the reputation of Elizabeth I, using the figure to begin her collection, Feminine Gospels, with an image of a strong, powerful, and well-respected woman in history. More in-depth references come with ‘ The Long Queen‘ refusing to marry, something Queen Elizabeth, also known as The Virgin Queen, cleverly avoided in her lifetime.

The fourth section discusses Princess Diana. This is the most structurally confined section of the text, being written in quatrains. These carefully planned stanzas could reflect the pressure on Diana to conform to the stereotypes of a princess. Her life was measured and directly compared to other royals, the pressure on her immeasurable. Duffy emulates this pressure by confining the structure to a particular style – representing Diana’s entrapment through the form and structure of this section. Duffy uses polysyndeton across ‘marry and how and where and when’ to show the sequential nature of life. One thing leads to the next, time marching on to an unstoppable beat. Duffy explores this idea, looking from ‘marry’ to ‘die’ in the space of a line – someone’s adult life summarised in this small amount of poetry. This is my first time reading Carol Ann Duffy and I am already in love with her play of words & lyric intensity, with her world of “women, girls,/ spinsters and hags, matrons, wet nurses,/witches, widows, wives, mothers of all these,” as we see from the opening poem, “The Long Queen.”Duffy begins this stanza by focusing on the longevity of Cleopatra’s reign, ‘She never aged’. Once again Duffy begins a section by focusing on the female pronoun, ‘she’. Yet, the focus on ‘aged’ could link to the notion that women’s beauty fades as they age. Duffy could be retaliating against this idea, demonstrating how Cleopatra ‘never’ changed during her life. Use italics (lyric) and bold (lyric) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part