Before one can analyze a poem, I feel one must analyze its foundation, its inspiration, its very reason for being, to truly understand and appreciate the work of the poet. So, it stands to reason that I must first analyze the quote from Shakespeare's will, before addressing the poem itself, as Carol Ann Duffy drew our attention to it. Whether you recognize it or not, 'I give my wife my second best bed' is a powerful phrase, it screams indistinguishable volumes. These were the last words of comfort for a widow, someone who had spent her life loving a man who was no longer there and Duffy understood it. So instead of formulating a poem that discredited a life-sculpting marriage, he valorized it, resurrected it and gave it meaning in a decade in which it had none the poem Anne Hathaway, giving Shakespeare's wife a voice to describe a love raised in a time when women did not The poem itself is a sonnet written in imperfect iambic pentameter, the imperfect nature of the pentameter has given way. to assonance and alliteration. which created a soft sounding poem, much like a loving whisper or a last farewell to a lover who has already left Duffy chose a Shakespearean sonnet, albeit a very relaxed adaptation, to complete Shakespeare's earlier sonnets and convey that Anne may have been the woman who wrote them up. The half-rhymes that initialize the poem almost conform to the typical Shakespearean sonnet form, this could be a subtle reference to the way Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway began their marriage. “Anne Hathaway was three months pregnant when they got married, it was what you would call a shotgun wedding” (Evidence of Shotgun Marriage Shakespeare Searched for, 198… middle of paper… Google Search. [online] Available at: https: //www.google.co.uk/search?q=define+assonance&rlz=1C1CHFX_en-GBGB541GB542&oq=define+assonance&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.2598j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8 [Accessed 8 May 2014].Miller Cutting, B. (2011 Alas, Poor Anne: Shakespeare's “Second-Best Bed” in Historical Perspective [online] http://shakespeare-oxford.com/). //shakespeare-oxford.com/wp-content/oxfordian/cutting_poor_anne_2011. pdf [Accessed 8 May 2014].Shakespeare.mit.edu, (2014 Winter's Tale: Whole Play) Available at: http://./shakespeare.mit.edu/winters_tale/full.html [Accessed 8 May 2014] .Stpetershigh.org.uk, (2014). .stpetershigh.org.uk/DEPARTMENTS/ENGLISH_DEPT/PRUSH/KS5_Resources/Year13A2Resources/Anne_Hathaway_Duffy.html [Accessed 8 May. 2014].