Feminine Gospels

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It is hard not to find that assumption of freedom heady. Even if, in this particular poem, the character is hardly given Duffy's approval, that readiness to move on is intoxicating. It teaches an odd, contemporary post-feminist courage; and perhaps that is the source of Duffy's huge popularity. It is ironic that the first two women cited — one mythological and the other drawn from ancient history — were powerful and high status. The other women lived in the twentieth century but, despite the burgeoning feminist movement, were powerless victims. 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. One could argue there is a slight reference to Desdemona from Othello, ‘a handkerchief she’d dropped once’. This reference bears relevance as Desdemona is murdered by Othello due to his male rage, unable to believe his loyal wife.

Key features: monosyllabic and harsh consonant sounds, asyndetic listing, declarative sentences, cross-line rhyme, caesure Duffy’s brand of magical realism is glorious and memorable. ‘The Map-Woman’ is a powerful and thoughtful poem, about the experiences and places mapped upon a body; ‘Beautiful’ holds a few echoes of ‘The Lady of Shallot’; ‘The Diet’ is about a woman who starves herself so much that she ends up shrinking. Duffy describes her as ‘Anorexia’s true daughter, a slip / of a girl, a shadow, dwindling away’. Allow me to share a passage from ‘The Woman Who Shopped’, in which a materialistic lady effectively turns into a department store: One of the most important lines in the poem, ‘Over her breast was the heart of the town’, stems in this second stanza. Duffy connects ‘town’ and ‘breast’, linking place and body. This is emblematic of the content of the poem as a whole, place etched on the woman’s skin. Yet, this also suggests how important a home town is to someone. No matter if you hate or love where you were born, you can never change the fact that you were born there. The ‘heart’, representing the center of this ‘town’ is above the woman’s ‘breast’, being held close to her own heart. This represents how she keeps her hometown deep inside her, the memories of that place shaping her into the person she is. Using ‘breast’ also centers the poem on a uniquely female perspective, Duffy further connecting with other poems in ‘Feminine Gospels’. Circle of rhythm- stanzas start short and build up-reflecting growth of media attention of the female stars, which ends in their downfall, reflected by the shorter stanzas at the end The poem moves chronologically through their lives, exploring their rise to fame and subsequent downfall. Each one is brutal, ending in a death caused by the exploitation of a patriarchal world. Although some of these women gained power within their lives, they could never truly flourish in a society that placed masculine identities as more influential. Duffy uses this poem to expose the horrors of society, women exploited until they come to a tragic end. Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana all died horrifically. Cleopatra died to a self-inflicted snake bite, Munroe to an overdose, and Diana to a car crash after being pursued by the ravenous press of England. The exploitation of women is rife throughout history, not stopping even as we move into the 21st century.Firstly, I must say that I absolutely love what Feminine Gospels has set out to do: ‘Exploring issues of sexuality, beauty and biology, Carol Ann Duffy’s poems tell tall stories as though they are unconditional truths, spinning modern myths from images of women as bodies – blood, bones and skin – and corpses, as writers and workers, shoppers and slimmers, as fairytale royals or girls next door’. Its style and focus was reminiscent of The World’s Wife for me. The Long Queen‘ is split by Duffy into 7 stanzas, each measuring 6 lines. The consistency of structure throughout the poem could reflect the stability of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the queen ruling for a total of 45 years. I sat down in the library to read some of the books I'd already chosen, but this one caught my eye and attention somehow, sitting on a shelf just to my right. It combined a few of the best things in the world: poetry, poetry written by women & poetrt about women. I read in it one sitting, still at the library, sitting on a worn colourful striped armchair. Feminie Gospels is Duffy's sixth collection of poetry, and features poems with subjects ranging from women in history, lesbian school teachers & Anonymous (who in Virginia Woolf's words was a "woman" - as always, I agree with her). The standouts for me were The Diet, Tall, Loud & The Laughter of Stafford Girl's High. This collection is lyrically written, powerful, beautiful. I am very interested in researching further in how Duffy explains her own poetry and the intent behind them. I wish my brain was advanced enough to understand every poem I read but then again, that would take away a lot of the magic. in stripping women bare of their layers, carol ann duffy centres her anthology feminine gospels on expanding upon the historical, the archetypal, the biblical, and the fantastical visions of female identity, often rewriting them as she sees fit. Themes: loss of control, loss of identity, suffering, society pressure altering women to fit into stereotypes

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 one word title is a loaded adjective, which carries different associations in the mind of each reader. The irony is that the lives of the beautiful women, explored in the poem, were difficult, contrasting tragically to their physical loveliness. The third section explores Marilyn Monroe. The first two stanzas contain 9 lines, while the second two contain 10. This section is carefully regulated, but not so much as the fourth. The fact the stanzas get longer as this section progresses could reflect how controlling the media were of Marilyn. As she advanced in her career, the media began to show more of her, represented through the lengthening structure. Yet, even in these stanzas, there is an element of regularity. Monroe’s life was heavily controlled by the media, which wanted her to be depicted in a certain way. Duffy uses structure to reflect these ideas, emulating her life through the structure. Erica wagner Nobody is ever going to need to be told how to enjoy a Carol Ann Duffy poem . . . She is an inspired reinterpreter of myth and a fertile creator of fables of her own

History is a key theme within Duffy’s Beautiful, and in several of the ‘ Feminine Gospel’ poems. Both within History, The Long Queen, and Sub, Duffy uses history to make her arguments. Although in The Long Queen the woman has lots of power, the other three poems expose how mistreated women are throughout history. One technique that Duffy within Sub is a caesura. Caesura, a break or disruption within a line through punctuation, is used frequently within the poem. In doing this, Duffy emphasizes the words that come before and after the pause, adding moments of metrical disruption to pause the rhythm of the lines. One example of this, ‘tampon -‘ uses a caesura to emphasize the presence of the ‘tampon’, the symbol of menstruation, bringing in the feminine element within the masculine atmosphere of the football field. Duffy constantly balances her femininity with the acts she is achieving, doing so despite the patriarchal notions of a woman’s place.The reference to ‘light’ is normally a positive association. Yet, for Monroe, even the most positive things are subverted. Duffy uses ‘under the lights’ to display how exposed Monroe was. Especially surrounding the rumored affair with President Kenedy, the world blamed her instead of the wildly powerful man who manipulated her. Duffy notes Helen to have an unobtainable beauty, ‘daughter of the gods’ and ‘divinely fair’. The reference to beauty continues in ‘pearl’, Duffy using this to suggest the value which beauty holds in society. Duffy then uses asyndeton, connecting many adjectives to describe how beautiful Helen was. The ‘fuzz of woodland… under each arm’ represents armpit hair. This image could be interpreted polysemously within the text. Although some argue that it means she has stopped caring about her body, I would argue that this is an overly British analysis. Considering she has travelled all over the world trying to escape her identity, she would be familiar with the customs of many countries. Indeed, in other parts of the world, it is not traditional for women to shave, Duffy’s Map-Woman embracing this custom. Moreover, the rejection of shaving ties in with the 21st Century feminist movement, many women not following the stereotypes built on patriarchal assumptions. 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. Alongside the innate eroticism of Duffy’s language here, she also presents a note of violence. Monroe is a commodity to be employed, ‘investors’ gold’, Duffy suggesting how people capitalize on her beauty. Indeed, ‘her eyes’ are ‘pressed by a banker’s thumb’, the violent imagery being covered in false ‘sapphires’ and ‘platinum’ to cover up the horrors of her mistreatment. Monroe is manipulated and controlled by those around her, made into a money-making machine instead of treated like a human.

The second and third ‘laws’ that Queen Elizabeth comes to represent are ‘Blood’ and ‘Tears’, dispelling the shame and fear of periods and allowing all women to own their emotions. ‘Tears’ are not something to be feared or ignored, but rather used as ‘salt pearls’ to adorn the ‘Long Queen’s fingers’, the Queen engendering an image of women supporting women.The voice is that of a first person narrator, the poet. The tone is solemn, understatedly emotional and deeply sad. 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 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. Bala, Ismail. "Woman-To-Woman: Displacement, Sexuality and Gender in Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry". Linguistic Association of Nigeria, vol 4, no. 2, 2011, Accessed 29 Apr 2018.