Carol Ann Duffy: A05 Critics Flashcards
Carol Ann Duffy herself on the collection: ‘Mean Time is concerned with …’
Mean Time is concerned with ‘the different ways which time brings about change or loss’.
Kaniz Tisha: ‘The poems in Mean Time are marked by their…’
‘The poems in Mean Time are marked by their EMOTIONAL HONESTY, LINGUISTIC PRECISION, and the POIGNANT EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN CONDITION’.
Evan Boland: Duffy’s poetry ‘has something to do with taking the Larkinesque tone…’
Duffy’s poetry ‘has something to do with taking the Larkinesque tone that was so scrubbed with lyric pessimism and reinscribing it on the life of a contemporary woman poet whose poetic register reaches all the way from a subversive eroticism to a self-conscious regionalism’.
Jody-Allen Randolph: ‘Duffy shares Larkin’s tragic view of life […] Failure, loneliness, isolation and emptiness…’
‘Duffy shares Larkin’s tragic view of life […] Failure, loneliness, isolation and emptiness HAUNT HER VERSE’.
Jody-Allen Randolph on the contrast between Duffy and Larkin –> ‘Duffy has an optimistic side that…’
‘Duffy has an optimistic side that Larkin DOES NOT, most visible in many of her love poems’.
Elizabeth O’Reilly: ‘[Duffy’s poetry] is an exploration of…’
Duffy’s poetry is an ‘exploration of the deepest recesses of human emotion, both joy and pain’.
John Preston: ‘There is a prominent sense in her work that love…’
“There is a prominent sense in her work that love INVOLVES AS MUCH SUFFERING AS IT DOES JOY”.
Duffy on her use of language: ‘I like to use simple words…’
‘I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way’.
Peter Cash: ‘Duffy presents both herself and her personae (in her dramatic monologues) as…’
‘Duffy presents both herself (in her lyric poems) and her personae (in her dramatic monologues) as DISAPPOINTED FIGURES IN NEED OF COMFORT IN A DARK AND POTENTIALLY COMFORTLESS WORLD’.
