Poetry analysis of Auden's Funeral Blues.

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                                  FUNERAL BLUES BY W.H. AUDEN ANALYSIS

During Auden’s lifetime, Auden witnessed both World Wars and the deaths of many important people. Auden found himself writing many elegies and capturing the impact these figures had on the public and their century. Here, in “Funeral Blues,” Auden, through the voice of the speaker, seems to be writing an elegy for someone who meant a great deal to him personally. One can gather that speaker loved this person dearly. Auden is explaining that love does not always last. This poem incorporates a series of metaphors, personification, imagery and assonance to describe the writer’s feeling about losing his loved one.

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,                                                                          Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,                                                              Silence the pianos and with muffled drum                                                                                Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come”

In the first stanza the speaker uses some of “clocks”, “oceans” and “piano” to indicate the importance of his love. With the death of this person in the speaker’s world, time has stopped To show the end of happiness and the start of mourning, the writer includes the silencing of the pianos and then low thudding drums used at funeral to describe the sadness that he feels now the relationship is over. He includes the metaphor “coffin” to either represent his own emotional death he feels now that he has lost something so valuable to him. The stanza presents the theme of death, which is relevant throughout the poem. The speaker processes his dread through commanding verbs such as “stop” and “prevent” that show the readers, the speaker’s brute authority

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Although Auden wants this world to come to a halt, the death must be announced, as the next stanza details:

“Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves
 Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves”

This stanza is about opening up this private grief for a public mourning. The stanza insists that everyone should share in this person’s loss because not only has the speaker lost someone very special, essentially, so has the world. To symbolise the pain the writer uses the techniques of personification describe an aeroplane moaning. The personification suggests that the inanimate act and share the dread of the speaker. This line explores the lack of enthusiasm he feels now ...

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