2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

sex, love and gender. After correlating all of my research, analysis and comparisons, I began writing. Poets often convey their themes and narratives through the monologues of their characters, be they woman, man or child. In the work of Carol Ann Duffy and John Donne, reoccurring prominent themes revolve around perspective on sex, love and gender. Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright who was appointed to the position of Britain’s Poet Laureate in 2009. She is not only the first woman to ever hold the title, but as well, the first openly gay or bisexual poet in this position. In her various works, one such being ‘The Worlds’ Wives’, Carol Ann Duffy focuses on addressing gender, oppression and violence. In her work, Carol Ann Duffy strives to give a voice to the ‘silenced’ women in the world, throughout history. Meanwhile John Donne’s work can be viewed as a juxtaposition of the simplistic yet complicated protests of Carol Ann Duffy. John Donne was a 17 th century English poet who is considered to be the most eminent representative of metaphysical poetry. He is well known for his evocative love poems and satires. John Donne trod the intricate path between traditional works of love and revealing the hypocrisy of the genteel classes when it came to sex and respectability. Throughout his logically constructed poems, John Donne’s style tends to delve into inventive metaphors alongside various ironies and paradoxes, which contrasts with the conventional Elizabethan poetry of the time. In contrast to Carol Ann Duffy, John Donne has no female voice in his poetry, creating and telling stories only from the perspective of men. Both poets connect their work on an ascending or descending scale between the themes of sex and the themes of love; with treatment of gender being seen from John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ and ‘The Good Morrow’ which juxtapose ideas from blatantly sexual and always present satirical humour to the growth of love from immaturity, to

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