Pearls, Diamonds and Coins: Fashioning the Beloved's Body in Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry

Abstract

Carol Ann Duffy inherits and reworks many of the codes and conventions of canonical love poetry; from her position as an acclaimed contemporary poet interested in giving voice to marginal and dissident subjects and transforming poetry from within, she has explored the connection between the adornment of women's bodies and the politics of looking. This article proposes to interpret pearls, gems, jewellery and gold in three poems from different stages of Duffy's career as part of a work of revision and critique of canonical love poetry. Drawing from feminist research on the love sonnet, Petrarchism, and the blazon, I discuss how Duffy portrays ornaments, and fashion more broadly, as "a liberating and repressing part of our lives" (2004: xi).