Feminine Gospels

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This, the first poem in the collection Feminine Gospels, sets the tone and establishes the scope in relation to all aspects of womanhood; their individual and collective experiences. 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 final image of this section focuses on ‘little bird inside a cage’, representing the trap that beauty is. Helen’s whole life was marred by the prosecution of men, trapped due to her physical features. The final image of a ‘cage’ symbolizes this oppression, Helen’s life is destroyed due to her beauty. The first section is varied in structure. Some paragraphs are short, while some are long. Duffy could be using the freeform structure of the section to reflect the myth of Helen of Troy. As a character born from myth, Duffy represents this fantasy depiction through the energetic and changing structure. The final stanza measures only two lines, perhaps reflecting her subjection at the hands of a patriarchal society. The shortened stanza represents her eventual demise and minimization in history. Circle of rhythm- stanzas start short and build up-reflecting growth of media attention of the female stars, which ends in their downfall, reflected by the shorter stanzas at the end

Placed as the first poem within Duffy’s ‘Feminine Gospels’ collection, this poem comes to represent a gold standard of remembering women’s experience, both on an individual and collective level. It is prioritized due to being first, the impactful first line, ‘The Long Queen couldn’t die’ symbolizing the extent of women’s influence and power, extending onwards throughout time. Flowers’ are often used as a stereotypical symbol of fertility and the delicate nature of women. Yet, by connecting with ‘sore’, placing this adjective before ‘flowers’, Duffy removes this archetypical notion of how women should portray themselves, tainting ‘flowers’ with an aching pain ‘sore’. This speaks to the female experience, childbirth is incredibly painful, and the delicate ‘flower’ symbol of women is ridiculous, Duffy transforms the image into something more realistic through the use of this oxymoron. Although the punctuation within the stands varies, one thing to note is simply the length of this poem. In the anthology, only Beautiful and Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High reach similar lengths. This could be to reflect the expanse of information contained in a map. Duffy uses the symbol of a map to represent someone’s whole identity. Therefore, the extensive amount of information given can reflect the intricacy of an individual life. Duffy focuses on those small moments which end up having such a dramatic influence on one’s life. Some of Duffy’s references discuss Liverpool, the city in which she was born. Similarly, some road names are taken from Stafford, the city in which Duffy lived for many years.There is a great deal of male lust in these stanzas, with everyone wanting to be with her. The use of caesura around ‘line, sighed,’ signals the desperation of the men that follow her. Helen’s beauty captures these people in a spell, then all want to follow her ‘till death’. Although Helen has a great deal of power, it is all based on her beauty, the overwhelming ‘every man’ following her being an incredibly daunting image. The poem comprises four free-verse stanzas of uneven length with lines also of uneven length. There is no regular rhyme scheme, although Duffy uses internal consonant and assonant rhyme. There is also no regular metrical rhythm, but the sentences flow smoothly. Lines are frequently enjambed. It is within the fourth stanza in Duffy introduces the first ‘law’ of Elizabeth’s, ‘Childhood’. Duffy states that Queen Elizabeth created a society in which ‘a girl’ would feel safe wherever she was, ‘no girl growing’ without being protected. The consonance of /g/ across ‘girl growing’ reflects the sense of ageing, with the extended sound being emblematic of growing and changing. The oxymoronic ‘Tough beauty’ displays Cleopatra’s character perfectly. She is at once beautiful and impactful. She uses her beauty to gain leverage, being able to outsmart the men in her way. Anything that Caesar does, Cleopatra does the same or better, ‘matched him glass for glass’. Duffy dismantles the notion that women cannot perform equally to men, Cleopatra doing so despite being subjugated for her feminine beauty. Alongside displaying the content of the poem, Duffy also cleverly suggests the connection between place and identity through the title. Indeed, ‘Map’ and ‘Woman’ are connected by a hyphen. In doing this, Duffy symbolizes the innate connection between place and identity. The woman can never escape her ‘map’ because it is a part of her. It is not ‘Map’‘Woman’, but ‘Map-Woman’, the two things fused into one. The fact that each word is capitalized could also suggest that both are equally important to the story. While indeed touching on identity, Duffy suggests this is just as importantly a poem that focuses on the female experience. This is a woman’s body, her story told by Duffy.

Another theme that Duffy explores throughout Beautiful is the female body. Indeed, the title word ‘Beautiful’ refers to female beauty. Yet, this beauty is often a negative thing, leading to exploitation. Duffy argues that the female body is used as a point of manipulation, and society sexualizes these bodies for its own gain. Especially in the third section of the poem, Duffy suggests that society focuses on Marilyn Monroe due to her beauty. While some could see this as a form of gaining power, it seems that Duffy focuses more so on how this attention leads to the eventual demise of these women. Sub begins with the personal pronoun ‘I’, instantly focusing the poem on Duffy’s own experiences, placing the feminine perspective at the forefront of the narrative. Yet, even with her excellent performance in the football match, she was only permitted on within ‘extra time’, signalling how even as she reconquers history for women, she is only permitted lesser roles.One technique that Duffy within Sub is a caesura. Caesura, a break or disruption within a line through punctuation, is used frequently within the poem. In doing this, Duffy emphasizes the words that come before and after the pause, adding moments of metrical disruption to pause the rhythm of the lines. One example of this, ‘tampon -‘ uses a caesura to emphasize the presence of the ‘tampon’, the symbol of menstruation, bringing in the feminine element within the masculine atmosphere of the football field. Duffy constantly balances her femininity with the acts she is achieving, doing so despite the patriarchal notions of a woman’s place. Finally, Duffy discusses the Princess of Wales, Diana. Lady Di was known as the “People’s Princess”, is a much-loved figure in the U.K. In 1981 she engaged Prince Charles and married later that year. After the couple’s separation in 1992, the media sought details of their marital difficulties. Diana was viciously hunted by the media, eventually dying in a car crash while fleeing the paparazzi in 1997. Her funeral was televised and brought in 32.10 million viewers in the U.K., with millions more watching around the world.