AQA (B): Paper 2 Modern times
Carol Ann Duffy has responded to Shakespeare’s cultural, artistic and linguistic legacy throughout her career. As poet laureate (2009–19) she gave a conference talk called ‘We are all Shakespeare’s children’ that reviewed how his work has enriched our language and literature through the ages, produced ‘A Shakespeare Masque’ for the 400th anniversary of his death, and wrote a sonnet for the World Shakespeare Festival that made her feel like ‘a tadpole… invited to write about a whale’. Her poem — ‘Shakespeare’ (Duffy 2012a) — is Duffy’s ‘tribute’ to a writer who has been ‘a kind of constant living presence’ in her life: ‘someone I’ve read since I was twelve, and continue to read, to find new sources, new inspirations and new ways of seeing the world. He is the English language for me’ (Duffy 2011; University of Birmingham 2016; Duffy 2012b).
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