Anne Hathaway is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009...

 about Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare)

Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. They were married in 1582. She outlived her husband by seven years...

, the wife of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

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This poem, a sonnet, appears in The World's Wife

The World's Wife

The World's Wife is a collection of poems by Carol Ann Duffy published in 1999.The World's Wife is Carol Ann Duffy's first themed collection of poems, which was first published in 1999...

, published in 1999, a collection of poems. The poem is based on the famous passage from Shakespeare's will regarding his "second-best bed". Duffy chooses the view that this would be their marriage bed, and so a memento of their love, not a slight. Anne remembers their lovemaking as a form of "romance and drama", unlike the "prose" written on the best bed used by guests, "I hold him in the casket of my widow's head/ as he held me upon that next best bed".