Love and Death

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Compare how the different feelings of love and death are portrayed in the two poems; “Funeral Blues” and “Remember”

The poems “Funeral Blues” by W H Auden and “ Remember” by Christina Rosetti are both about the feelings of love and death. There is a universal feeling between love and death, as they don’t change, and neither do their feelings. In “Funeral Blues” the feeling conveyed is that once the person you loved has gone there is no point in life anymore and everything is over. Whereas “Remember” is saying to remember the loved person when they have gone at the beginning of the poem but in the sestet of this poem she changes he thoughts and tell the person she is writing the poem to that they should forget them. In both poems the feelings are both very strong.

The first poem “Funeral Blues” written by W H Auden was a free verse was written about a political leader. Auden had a great love for politics and mainly based his poems on it. He also based his poems on love, citizenship, religion and morals between human beings. His established reputation is a left- winged poet. The poem could be interpreted in different ways such as the political leader has died or someone close to him has died. The main theme of this poem is loving someone who has died. The word “stop” could imply that the political leader takes control and influenced people so W H Auden is empathising and making people remember him. The word “mourners” could suggest that the people that followed and supported him when he had power. The lines “Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves” gives connotations that it was a big/public funeral because normal weddings wouldn’t have doves and policemen showing respect by wearing black gloves. The different feelings of love are portrayed when W H Auden says, “He was my North, my South, my East, my West” this implies to the reader that the person her

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 Lost was his everything. On the contrary the line “I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong” suggests that the love has gone and he is disappointed that it hasn’t lasted. The feeling of death is expressed in the phrase “For nothing now can ever come to any good” by using heightened language. The word “nothing” conveys the feeling of sadness, as it is a strong word and expresses that it’s definite. The phrase could suggest that W H Auden doesn’t believe in love after death because they aren’t there he feels he can’t express his love. Auden ...

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