Product Description

'This book is going to be a hit, and can only consolidate Duffy's position as one of the most widely read British poets of her generation'. Robert Crawford, Herald

'It sparkes with wit, intelligence and an impressive lightness of touch, while drawing on some weighty emotional experiences: loneliness, jealousy, self-loathing, desire, the fierceness of a mother's love' Christina Patterson, Independent

'She reveals the foibles of the great, the ghastly and the ordinary bloke and the sufferings of those closest to them. The result is a melange of history lesson, fairy-tale and modern-day domestic tragedy, with the occasional joke thrown in for good measure.... Duffy's poetics are flawless - she never misses a beat, her pace is exhilarating, and her language is original and exciting'. Scotsman

'These thirty poems vibrate with intense colloquialisms, physicality, energy, freshness and cheek. Many of them are very funny... the best are inventive, subversive and written with great rhythmical and rhyming dash' Sunday Telegraph

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1970 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Elvis's wimpled sister rocks on in a convent she calls Graceland; Nancy Sinatra gets out her boots made for walking with the Kray Sisters; Mrs Midas misses the touch of her now dangerous golden-handed husband; and Queen Herod decrees the killing of each mother's son to protect her baby daughter in Carol Ann Duffy's startling new collection The World's Wife. Doubling is one of the most common themes--and stylistic ploys--of Western culture and thought, and the concept around which Duffy has ingeniously organised this profoundly playful collection. Mrs Midas, Mrs Aesop, Mrs Darwin, Frau Freud, Anne Hathaway, Mrs Rip Van Winkle, the Kray Sisters; these are some of the wives, and sisters, whose stories are told. These inventive, metaphorically precise poems offer much more, however, than just a recovery of the historical voice of her (supposedly) silenced indoors. Duffy dexterously rewrites Judao-Christian and classical mythologies, subverts fairytale and zestfully reinterprets the more modern myths of Darwin and Freud.

Humour is the abundant keynote of this accessible collection. Mrs Rip Van Winkle enjoys the freedom to travel and paint allowed by her husband's permanent slumbers, "Until the day / I came home with pastel of Niagara / and he was sitting up in bed rattling Viagra." Frau Freud analyses her over-exposure to "ding-a-ling, member and jock, / of todger and nudger and percy and cock," and confesses with irony to being, "as au fait with Hunt-the Salami / as Ms M. Lewinsky." Mrs Aesop groans about her husbands unstoppable garrulousness: "By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory," and Mrs Darwin evolves the following summary her husband's research:

"7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him--
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you."

The World's Wife throws open the windows on the stuffy annals of historical myth and breezes through some of its highlights with a sense of revelry and laugh-out-loud observation. In this wry take on the historical ubiquity of heterosexual coupledom that permeates so many cultural myths, Duffy has separated vibrant women from the shadows of their more famous husbands and brothers, and divorced them from the distortions of historical silence. --Rachel Holmes

Sunday Telegraph
‘These poems vibrate with intense colloquialisms, physicality, energy, freshness and cheek’

Scotsman
‘A melange of history lesson, fairy-tale and modern-day domestic tragedy’

Customer Reviews

Bringing Duffy to the masses... about time too.
I first discovered Carol Ann Duffy when presented with a copy of her selected works during my A Level English Literature and haven't looked back. She's a sly, intelligent yet not over dramatic poet, rather like Sylvia Plath with the British sense of humour.

The World's Wife is her most accessible collection to date - a collection of delightful parody tales from the world's most important (and least recognised) women. Before you get too enthralled by the humour, take a look at her style - she's precise, accurate and at times, stunning. If this floats your boat, try the Selected Works for a more rounded view of her poetry (much of which is less light hearted and lyrical than this offering).

Very funny, but serious too
I have just finished studying this collection as part of my degree. Although I probably wouldn't have bought this if I had not had to, now that I have read all of the poems, I have to admit that I enjoyed this collection immensely. This is definitely a collection of poems which encourage the reader to think about the issues discussed.
Each of Duffy's poems is a version of history, myth or legend, but from the female perspective (hence the title). So, for example, instead of Shakespeare being the figure of attention, Ann Hathaway becomes the voice for one of the poems. This results in a lot of the humour coming from poking fun at male figures singularly and collectively (I think all women would be able to imagine men they know in quite a few of the poems). Because of this, I felt that the humour was very dark, in places the humour seemed morbid, as you find yourself laughing at things which are actually quite disturbing if you think more about it, ('The Kray Sisters' is one example). This dark humour, I think, is probably due to Duffy dealing with serious issues such as violence and murder, and these occurrences are all the more shocking when they come from a woman.
The only small problem I had with the collection as a whole, was that I felt after a while the poems just seemed more and more anti-men. Don't get me wrong, I understand why Duffy has written them the way she has, but it does make you wonder how a collection by a male poet may be received, if the poems took the same tone towards women.

What a way with words!
Duffy here exploits to the full her extroadinary understanding of the English language to provide an amazingly humorous collection of poetry. She profiles numerous well known male figures, such as Aesop, King Midas and even King Kong from the viewpoint of their wives. The intimacy and detail such a relationship would provide is well portrayed, pointing out the fallibility of even the most legendary figure and providing laughs for females around the world! Although some of the selection do add to Duffy's already well established reputation of an anti male attitude, they are on the whole subtle enough to be innoffensive. If you enjoy humour of a satirical brand with lashings of irony and Duffy's individual twist, you cannot fail to be impressed with this compilation. If on the other hand you are a newcomer to Duffy's work, this would be the perfect piece to give you a gentle introduction.