Compare and contrast Anne Hathaway and Frau Freud in Duffy’s Essay

Compare and contrast Anne Hathaway and Frau Freud in Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife There are both similarities and contrasts between ‘Anne Hathaway’ and ‘Frau Freud ‘One of the mail similarities between the two poems are the sexual references in both poems , the structure of the poems and that they are both written in a women’s voice. One of the main similarities between the poems is that they are both written by wives of two very famous men, William Shakespeare and Sigmund Freud. There are also similarities in the fact that there are sexual references in both of the poems. In ‘Anne Hathaway’ she uses these sexual connotations as a way of explaining why Shakespeare did leave her the second best bed. â€Å"The bed we loved in was a spinning world/of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas/where he would dive for peals.† In ‘Frau Freud’ the poem contains a list of euphemism for penises that men use. Duffy or Frau Freud uses these synonyms to completely debunk Freud theories with this list that brings the readers attention to Freud’s theories of the male obsession with the penis. The women in the two poems both enjoy sex, Anne Hathaway comments on how she and her husband shared their love with their actions and words. In ‘Frau Freud’ she also says that she enjoys sex â€Å"I’m as au fait with hunt-the-salami/as Ms M. Lewinsky" Another similarity between the two poems is that they are both written in sonnet form. They both contain fourteen lines and are written as a sonnet for two specific reasons. ‘Anne Hathaway’ is written in sonnet form because it was Shakespeare’s most famous and memorable form of expression. Duffy also used as a way of keeping Anne Hathaway’s love for her husband alive ... ...igraph to the poem is an extract from Shakespeare’s will which supposedly insults Anne Hathaway, but Anne explains in her sonnet to the people outside of their marriage that she would not want their best bed because this was not the bed they loved each others in. â€Å"as he held me upon that next best bed† Overall the similarities that can be seen between the two poems are mostly superficial comparisons and are not really relevant to the main themes of the poems. Even the similarities have contrasts within them, for example they are both about relations with their husbands and their sexual relationships. But Anne Hathaway looks upon Shakespeare with love and compassion, Frau Freud sees Freud as obsessive and has no emotions towards him and sees sex as a merely physical activity. So I must conclude that the poems contrast more than they are able to compare.