The World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy

...overly enthusiastic; having suffered through the terribly depressing poems of hers that we studied at GCSE. However, I was pleasently surprised as many of them are funny and seem a lot easier to 'analyse'. Ok now here's the review of the book itself:
The World's Wife is a clever take on popular characters from mythology, fairytales and real people (all male, of course!) Duffy takes the tales and subverts them so we see these famous stories ...
...who have not had the chance to tell their stories before, including Mrs Midas, Queen Herod and Delilah to name but a few.
The poems themselves range from downright funny ('Mrs Faust' and 'Elvis's Twin Sister' to shocking (such as 'The Devil's Wife', which gives a sympathetic view of Myra Hindley) to poignantly sad (See 'Mrs Quasimodo'). In short it covers a wide range of emotions to suit whatever mood one is in.
My favourite poems were ... more

When I found out we would be studying Duffy's 'The World's Wife' for A-level i must admit I wasn't overly enthusiastic; having suffered through the terribly depressing poems of hers that we studied at GCSE. However, I was pleasently surprised as many of them are funny and seem a lot easier to 'analyse'. Ok now here's the review of the book itself:
The World's Wife is a clever take on popular characters from mythology, fairytales and real people (all male, of course!) Duffy takes the tales and subverts them so we see these famous stories from the women's perspective. We enjoy stories from 30 women who have not had the chance to tell their stories before, including Mrs Midas, Queen Herod and Delilah to name but a few.
The poems themselves range from downright funny ('Mrs Faust' and 'Elvis's Twin Sister' to shocking (such as 'The Devil's Wife', which gives a sympathetic view of Myra Hindley) to poignantly sad (See 'Mrs Quasimodo'). In short it covers a wide range of emotions to suit whatever mood one is in.
My favourite poems were 'Mrs Aesop' and 'Delilah'. The former because it is highly amusing and one can definitly see that living with Aesop, and being constantly subjected to all his fables, would be very trying after a while. The latter is excellent simply because it provides a very sympathetic view of a woman portrayed in the Bible as disloyal and evil for accepting a bribe and gives Delilah a chance to explain her actions.
Right, so that's all the good points: easy to read, not overly depressing (unless you're a male!) and a wide range of emotions. Now for the inevitable criticism.
Firstly, it doesn't come with notes enlightening us as to who the male being degraded in each poem actually is. While it isn't difficult to go on Wikipedia or the like and find out; I think it would be a nice touch to have the original stories in the back. Also it is fiercely anti-men - they do not come off well at all and, while in places it is funny, in others it is rather extreme and a little discomforting.
And that's my view on 'The World's Wife'. Despite its few faults it is still an excellent and highly accesible collection of poems that I would recommend to anyone (male or female) 

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