Anne Hathaway Carol Ann Duffy

Epigraph ‘ Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where he would dive for pearls. loved rather than slept in Imaginative world – Shakespeare’s plays subtle yet beautiful sexual imagery metaphor –giddy with love

My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; metaphor for lovemaking importance of language – the words used by Shakespeare are as real as beautiful phenomenon such as shooting stars shooting stars - flashes of rare wonder.

my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. mixture of the physical and the metaphorical use of poetic terminology linking to the craft of Shakespeare in his writing Her personality/body rhymes with his. use of dancing implies lightness, energy and fun – the joy of Shakespeare’s poetry and prose

Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the bed a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. memories of her dead love coming back to her sensory images link to the epigraph, the bed the centre of their love and life together metaphor links their lovemaking with writing plays

In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living, laughing love – scathing comment – prose rather than poetry, which is more beautiful and intricate sleeping rather than loving link again to epigraph alliteration – echoes of love or joy

I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head as he held me upon that second best bed. the fact that it is second best is irrelevant – it contained their love reminds us of her loss holds precious memories alive rhyming couplet – conforming to the Shakespearean sonnet form