The Ascent to the Surface: Eurydice in Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife and Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Abstract

This paper draws a comparison between two contemporary readings of the mythical character Eurydice: the poem “Eurydice”, from Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife, and the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, directed by Céline Sciamma. Far from merely narrating the myth from a female point of view, the works by Duffy and Sciamma involve a rethinking of the story’s current resonances—particularly, the need for women to represent themselves under their own terms both in literature and film. To support this argument, both works center on the gaze and the creation of images as acts of power. By giving voice to those who have frequently been silenced, Duffy and Sciamma argue that representations that do not consider the creative contribution of women who pose will ultimately fail. Besides looking at the links and contrasts between Duffy’s poetry and Sciamma’s film, this paper follows Sciamma’s understanding of filmmaking as collaboration, her rejection of the figure of the muse, and her desire to narrate a love story based on consent and equality. To conclude, I argue that Duffy’s later poems, specifically the love sonnets from her collection Rapture, continue this endeavor of enabling the representation of love between equals in the lyric.