The title “Funeral Blues” sets the somber tone that Auden reinforces in the first stanza, where the speaker prepares for a funeral. This is a power point I created for a Poetic Presentation in my Comp II class. The opening line to the final stanza of ‘Funeral Blues’ is among the more striking in the entire poem. The third stanza is the same as the others concerning the number of lines and the rhyme scheme, except there are no end-stopped lines. Wystan Hugh Auden was born in England but later became a citizen of the United States. Auden grew up in Birmingham, England and was known for his extraordinary intellect and wit. Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. The poem presents many themes about life and its creation.The magic of Auden, however, is that he is able to invoke his reader's emotions and have them share and grieve for the loss of someone who is never even named. Let airplanes circle moaning overhead This time though he describes the airplanes as “moaning”. They touch on a wide variety of themes and use different poetic techniques. If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. Auden’s‘Funeral Blues’. Funeral Blues by W. H Auden was the most dramatic and direct poem, as Auden not only used a range of words with negative connotation, but he also explored effective techniques such as, imperatives and onomatopoeia. W. H. AUDEN (1907-1973) 3. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Interestingly, the stanza ends with the phrase “let the mourners come,” an invitation of sorts. There are several important themes in W.H. Line 9 is a traditional ambic pentameter, whereas line 10 and 11 are iambic anapestic pentameter, and line 12 … Also included is a link for a video I created for my presentation in Comp II. John G. Blair in The Poetic Art of W. H. Auden noted that “Auden frequently chooses the imperative to attract attention.” Funeral Blues 5. Funeral blues 1. 1.3K. The piano is silenced, and then……after the piano has been silenced, the coffin is brought out to the sound of a ‘muffled drum’, a muffled drum is a common technique used at military or state funerals to lower the sound of drum beat, reference JFK’s funeral. What is interesting is the idea of silencing the piano with a muffled drum. Poetic techniques like symbolism are widely used in this poem to assist in the portrayal of the key themes of death, grief, and dependence. International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom. For the Time Being . But to everyone else, nothing changes. The poem has employed a wide range of poetic techniques such as symbolism. Performance & security by Cloudflare, Please complete the security check to access. In the next line of ‘Funeral Blues,’ the narrator evokes the image of the “dove”. You can read more poetry from W.H. The theme of darkness continues as they then talk about dismantling the heavens. The next line furthers the importance of the deceased. The various devices are functioning to lock the reader in the text as the narrator weaves through time. He was also able to capture the true emotions of when you lose a loved one. I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. It is an atypically somber poem and is, therefore, a popular reading at funerals. For instance, in the first line of the first stanza: “the clocks, cut off” or “working week” in the second line of the third stanza. Funeral Blues Analysis 1169 Words | 5 Pages. Sign up to unveil the best kept secrets in poetry, Home » W.H. The usage of a literary device once again elicits an emotional response and heightens the reader’s acuity to the scene. The poem ‘Funeral Blues’ is a lament for a friend. The melodrama of the narrator’s emotions in ‘Funeral Blues’ peaks with the penultimate line as they suggest doing away with the oceans. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Poem of the day. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices. Funeral; Blues; 1.3K claps. He was my North, my South, my East and West, These include caesura, anaphora, alliteration, enjambment and hyperbole. Auden is meticulously clever in the language that he uses. W. H. Auden uses numerous literary techniques in this poem. But as the lines go on, the amorphous loss becomes more personal the speaker makes use of first-person pronouns. It is clear that they feel that now the person that they are mourning has been removed from their lives that they will never enjoy happiness again. They are isolated in their loss and no one adequately respects that fact. Towards the end of the poem, hyperbole becomes quite important. Funeral Blues is a Song poem, in which it has a certain rhythm, or beat, which can be sung to. “The pot calling the kettle black” is used to remind someone that they’re guilty of the same thing they’re accusing another of. Auden - Funeral Blues - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, The most comprehensive set of poetry analysis' the internet has ever seen basically because I made it!! The login page will open in a new tab. Auden » Funeral Blues by W.H. In conclusion "Funeral Blues" could be considered as a true love with its usage of modernist techniques. ‘Funeral Blues’ 6. It describes the listless feeling one experiences when everything seems pointless and irritating. It was first published in ‘The Year’s Poetry’ in 1938. In this form the last two stanzas were not included, and three others followed instead. This page is an analysis of the poem Funeral Blues by W.H. This is the Poetic Devices found in the poem Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks) by W.H. He showed love, grief and sorrow in Funeral Blues. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. The best Refugee Blues study guide on the planet. Home LC English (Ordinary) LC English (Higher) > … To begin with, consider his poetic form: he has deliberately chosen to unify his piece with a strict and consistent rhyme scheme. ‘Funeral Blues’ W. H.Auden 2. The speaker uses an imperative voice throughout the poem. The second poem is about how the poet’s father cannot forget about his wife and therefore conveys the feelings of love and sadness. Accessed 12 May 2021. "Funeral Blues" is a poem written by W.H. Biography of W.H. Auden. They plead with the world to feel as they do, understand his grief, and even participate in it. The content of the lines throughout the poem affirm it is, indeed, an elegy. What poems mean can often be significantly shaped by the place where they appear, and Auden's well-known poem, ‘Funeral Blues’, or ‘Stop all the clocks’, is a nice example of this. For instance, in the first line of the first stanza: “the clocks, cut off” or “working week” in the second line of the third stanza. The indifference of the world plagues the speaker in this poem. Poe 7. 5. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; The poem is divided into four stanzas. First, it stops the noise that they potentially make, the annoying ticking sound, but also it signifies the stopping of time. Suggesting that a plane could use its chemical trails to write anything as complex as that is pretty unrealistic. In the first lines, the speaker demands that everything quiet down and that all the “mourners come” to mourn. Auden’s poems cover a wide range of topics from politics, religion, love, and social issues. It is feasible the marching action performed by these men could elicit the experience of a drum beat. ‘Stop all the clocks’: a funeral poem . He used literary techniques to capture the readers attention. A brief summary of ‘Funeral Blues’ first. Funeral Blues - WH Auden - Poem: File Size: 58 kb: File Type: pdf: ... Blank Poetic Techniques for use with poems: File Size: 15 kb: File Type: docx: Download File. Poetic Techniques Within ‘Funeral Blues’ Auden makes use of several poetic techniques. The fifth poetic technique used is onomatopoeia. but your idea of the muffled steps of the pall bearer’s is a good one. “Funeral Blues” or “Stop all the clocks” is a poem by W. H. Auden, first published in its final, familiar form in 1938, but based on an earlier version published in 1936. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices. All three of these themes are tied together within the text as the speaker discusses what grief over the death of a loved one is like and how it separates one from the rest of the world. Silence is the order of the day. This essay will focus on how the feelings of loss were conveyed in the two poems. Images found by Tania Sheko, most selected from the … Time doesn’t slow down and no one cares what’s happening. The first, caesura, occurs when a line is split in half, sometimes with punctuation, sometimes not. One has to move forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. I believe W.H. Auden’s  “Funeral Blues” was first published as “Song IX” from ‘Twelve Songs’ (1936).The poem conjures up the atmosphere of a funeral. What a powerful way to start a poem. The grief of the poet is heartfelt and it is obvious that the death of his company on has left the poet feeling empty and bereft. Auden uses “public doves.” Could he be referencing the common pigeon through this phrase? Poetic Power Point - W.H. Auden also makes use of anaphora, or the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession. Auden would have known this, it is very much in keeping with the idea of ‘public mourning’ which the poet wants from the world. Auden is a poem filled with sorrow which deals with ideas of grief and mourning. The text is referenced often in film and TV (such as in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Gavin and Stacey). AS2 Assignment 1 Compare the poems Remember and Funeral Blues on the their poetic form, structure and language In this assignment I will be comparing the poems Remember by Christina Rossetti and the poem Funeral blues by WH Auden. Auden. Cloudflare Ray ID: 64e375d8a8bc493d Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. Enjambment forces a reader down to the next line, and the next, quickly. In this essay, I will present an analysis of the poem ‘funeral blues’ based on the use of literary and poetic elements. Using poetic devices and showing his true feelings of how much he misses that person who’s died. By stating they have lost their “talk” and their “song,” they are once again bringing the poem back to the theme of silence that has reoccurred throughout the poem. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. The poem was then included in Audens poetry collection of 1936 (sometimes under the book title Look, Stranger!, which Au… There is a universal feeling between love and death, as they don’t change, and neither do their feelings. i.e. The speaker is lost, physically and emotionally, without their partner. The tone of the poem is imperative as Death is commanding, inflexible and irreversible. Auden in his poem "Funeral Blues" explore the theme of death and how they dealt with the grief after losing someone they love, but both delved into it in different ways. An examination of the poem 'Stop all the clocks'Why not subscribe to MissHannaLovesGrammar? Their grieving has put them in a, figuratively, very dark place. It showcases Auden’s poetic ability to relate to human emotions. Alliteration, another important and common technique within Auden’s works, occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same letter. It’s filled with clever twists and heart-wrenching statements that give it a real poignancy, features that may explain the poem’s enduring popularity. Auden. The best Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks) study guide on the planet. Slam poetry contest (1) 1 05 8. Every single person that visits Poem Analysis has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. The stars represent hope and love and the narrator has no interest in these things at this point. Funeral Blues And Mid-Term Break By W. H. Auden 711 Words | 3 Pages. Another important technique commonly used in poetry is enjambment. For example, the fourth line of the first stanza, as well as the fourth line of the third stanza. A Walk After Dark . It originally appeared as a song in a play Auden cowrote with Christopher Isherwood called The Ascent of F6. I think the drum referenced here isn’t an actual drum. • Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Autumn Song . For someone like the speaker who has suffered a loss, the world is transformed. To create the home of poetry, we fund this through advertising, Please help us help you by disabling your ad blocker, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry ever straight to your inbox. • Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994) 4. He is a divisive figure although most scholars recognize his importance as one of the most renowned poets of the twentieth century they are often critical of his style and of his importance. The poem is also known as The poem is a morose, sad elegy that wonderfully describes the feelings associated with grieving. The blues were originally music developed by the slaves in the south that spoke of sadness, pain, or a time of loss. There is an ever-present theme of stopping sounds and promoting silence, hence preventing the dog from barking. ‘Funeral Blues,’ is a classic elegy. The dove is a powerful icon, especially from a religious standpoint. Please log in again. He has a large back catalog of work and also wrote plays/films as well as poems. Poem Analysis: Funeral Blues- W H AudenA comprehensive analysis of Auden's untraditional elegy, Funeral Blues. Funeral Blues by W.H. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Auden As requested, here is my Analysis of Funeral Blues, by W.H Auden. The third line emphasizes this. It has clearly been replaced by grieving. The poems “Funeral Blues” by W H Auden and ” Remember” by Christina Rosetti are both about the feelings of love and death. This appears sporadically throughout the text, for example, “Let” at the beginning of lines one and four of the second stanza and “My” at the start of lines two and three of the third. Auden stresses the frustrating emotions that almost everyone would feel, if they ever experienced the loss of a loved one. There is an element of “for all I care” about this line as if the narrator doesn’t want to deal with anything and just everything to go away as quickly as possible. Rather, it is a representation of the footsteps of pole bearers as the next line in the stanza references the arrival of the coffin. Auden used language and poetic devices to convey the ideas of loss and grief in Funeral Blues. Not a bad analysis…however, aeroplanes did up until recently write messages in the sky as an advertising gimmick. It is an intentionally exaggerated description, comparison or exclamation meant to further the writer’s important themes, or make a specific impact on a reader. These quatrains follow an AABB rhyming pattern, changing end sounds as the poet saw fit. Once again in this stanza, he makes reference to noises. When somebody dies their time is said to be up and this represents that. the last lines ask the impossible, that one should “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun” and put out the stars. ‘The Raven’ EA. Both Seamus Heaney in his poem "Mid-Term Break" and W.H. This is extremely powerful and emotional material and anyone who has suffered a tragic loss will no doubt be able to relate to the content of this poem. It is through you visiting Poem Analysis that we are able to contribute to charity. Most of the poem is delivered through an omniscient, anonymous narrator. Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. Within ‘Funeral Blues’ Auden makes use of several poetic techniques. These include grief/silence, isolation, and death. The first, and less widely-known, version of the poem, written and published in 1936, has five stanzas; the 1938 final version has four stanzas. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. Eliot. Auden here. 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