Feminine Gospels

Product Information

Preston, John (11 May 2010). "Carol Ann Duffy interview". Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 . Retrieved 16 February 2018– via www.telegraph.co.uk. Beautiful’ by Carol Ann Duffy moves through the lives of four women and shows how they were exploited. 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.

The head announces to the school the plans, letting them know the teachers are leaving. The girls react with joviality, ‘cries of Olé’, and ‘A round of applause’ following her speech. Doctor Bream angrily ‘banged through the double doors, crunched down the gravel drive’ and was gone in ‘her car’. The aggressive ‘banged’ and ‘crunched’ signal the head’s frustration, the girls winning the laughter war. Another technique that Duffy uses throughout Beautiful is a caesura. Following or preceding important phrases within the poem, Duffy uses caesura. This caesura creates a slight metrical pause within the line. This pause then places emphasis on what comes before or after the caesura. In doing this, Duffy can focus the poem on key ideas without disrupting the rhythm of reading. In many places, this caesura appears incredibly blunt, such as ‘Beauty is fame.’, emphasizing the harshness of this statement. These stanzas of The Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High explore the lives of the teachers, first focusing on Miss Dunn. She arrives home, ‘her small terraced house’ being oddly tragic. Yet, she loves her home, Duffy uses erotic language to depict her life. She writes, ‘kisses of light’, the connection with light-bearing connotations of positivity and happiness. Yet, the blunt final lines of stanza eleven leave the scene melancholic and uncertain. The life of Miss Dunn is lonely, signalled by ‘lived alone.’, combined with a preceding caesura and harsh end stop. These structural techniques lead to a depressing quality to the line, the meter sharply interrupted, reflecting Dunn’s solitary life.Duffy's rise rather wrong-footed the Oxbridge poetry establishment. The first issue of the Oxford little magazine Thumbscrew (Winter 1994/5) carried a critical essay by Simon Brittain. He concludes: "By employing simplistic language and overstated imagery, Duffy is perfect for those no longer accustomed nor inclined to close reading". But according to her supporters, he comes to this conclusion by ignoring her best poems.

Litotes: each stanza starts with a measure of time, 'not tonight', majority of which reference the futureThe Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High by Carol Ann Duffy traces the developing wave of laughter. Duffy represents how female voices can lift each other up and lead to liberation. Besides the list-making nuns, she did have two inspiring English teachers at her secondary schools: June Scriven at St Joseph's Convent School and Jim Walker at Stafford Girls' High School. Duffy kept in touch with Scriven until her death this year and regrets that her foremer teacher was not able to read the "school" poem, "The Laughter at Stafford Girls' High", in the new book. At school Duffy absorbed the English canon but her teachers' knowledge stopped at Dylan Thomas. Duffy wanted the contemporary. She found it in the local bookshop, where on one shelf she could browse and buy (with the proceeds of a Saturday job) the Penguin Modern Poets series. These writers - Neruda, Prévert, Aimé Césaire - had a stronger influence on her writing than the English poets she studied at school. The first laugh, coming from Carolann Clare’s note passed to Emily Jane, spreads across the school. One by one the students all begin to laugh, infectiously spreading across the school. The oppressive schoolroom scene is subverted by the laughter. Laughter represents freedom of expression, contrasting against the rote memorization the girls are forced to learn. There are several teachers mentioned in the poem. Of these, each eventually follows their dream, inspired by the girls’ free laughter.