Saturday, October 31, 2020

The World's Wife// When women are excluded from history


Hello Charlie, not too sad about the lockdown ?


Time for my second article, let me take a deep breath. What am I going to talk about ? Oh yes, during those holidays, I read a book, and it’s called


THE WORLD’S WIFE.


You may ask... what is it ? I’m certainly going to tell you, hang on !


The world’s wife is a book that contains thirty-one poems written by Carol Ann Duffy, a scottish poem and the poet laureate of the United Kingdom .


But enough about her, let’s talk about the book. As its name suggests, The world’s wife contains poem about a lot of women that have been excluded from history. Circe, Mrs Midas,Mrs Darwin, or even the Devil’s wife, nobody is forgotten. Some of them are suffering, some of them are living a passionate love story, or a very tender one. We see a lot of different point of view about life. So, yes, you might have guess it, this book is a feminist classic.

However, those poems do not only bring a female point of view to the myths, tales and other stories that we know only too well, it also brings a non-hidden modernism , and often a darker look : Little Red-Cap is definitively not as innocent as we may have thought.



I really loved this book and a some of the poem made me discover celebrities I didn’t know about, for example The Kray Twins, that had be turned into women in the poems. (They are actually british criminals, for those of you who may don’t know that ).


My favourites poems in the whole book would probably be Medusa, and Mrs Kong.

I especially love how the writer strongly described Medusa’s pain due to her transformation, and I love how modern Mrs Kong’s story is.



So, hey, what could I say more ? What are you waiting ? Go to a library or go buy this book right now !


6 comments:

  1. I must admit it, poetry isn't really my cup of tea and I would never have chosen to read this book on my own. But your article convinced me to read at least some of these poems, especially your favourite ;). I really like the poet's idea, and obviously, i am not against some more feminism in my life !

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    1. Aha, yes ! Always more feminism ! To be completely honest, it is not either, I sometimes have a bit of trouble understanding everything in a poem, which disturbs me. I chose this book because I wanted to try, and I was not disappointed ! :)

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  2. Okay, first I couldn't help but reading your article when I saw it was poetry.
    It really makes me want to discover more about Carol Ann Duffy : when you read Medusa at the poetry club I have to admit I was intrigued. And first woman to be the poet laureate, yayyy (or is that sad ? I don't know. But it is always encouraging to see progress :)
    It's a nice article btw, you convinced me.
    The World's Wife in the library, right ?

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    1. Yes it isssss ! Happy you liked my article ;) And well, I think it's good :) She is also the first LGBTQ+ person to fill this position, so I guess we could say, even if it's taking way too long, that progress is coming ?

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  3. Oh waw I love poetry(hate analysing it )
    Feminist , poetic , tender book and Carol Ann Duffy ? Oh please you had me at the title haha ;)

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    1. Ahaha yess ! Glad to hear you liked the title XD

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