Sammendrag
This thesis analyses the sonnet works of Patience Agbabi and Carol Ann Duffy through the theory of literary revisionism. Through analysing a representative selection of sonnets from the respective poets’ poetry production, this thesis theorises three revisionist strategies which Agbabi and Duffy use to pay homage to the sonnet tradition, claim the tradition for themselves as marginalised writers, and critically revise the sonnet tradition by exposing or subverting the conventions which have facilitated its nature as an androcentric and Eurocentric medium. Additionally, this thesis argues that Agbabi and Duffy revise the sonnet tradition on the level of form and content, theorising a connection between structural and thematic properties in the sonnet genre.
Keywords: the sonnet, tradition, Patience Agbabi, Carol Ann Duffy, revision, feminist theory, queer theory