Poetic techniques like symbolism are widely used in this poem to assist in the portrayal of the key themes of death, grief, and dependence. Auden uses first person to build a direct connection between the readers and the poem, and this also makes the poem a strong and emotional one.
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The narrator talks about how he feels after somebody important has passed.
![funeral blues funeral blues](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/-The-Funeral-Blues-Poetry-Analysis-W-H-Auden--4303086-1548791827/original-4303086-2.jpg)
The poem is of the narrative type, as it tells the story of the death of somebody and how that has affected the speaker. The idea of total loss is shown, and the poem evokes many emotions in the readers, including pain, despair, and sadness. The issue that the poem deals with is that of somebody losing a loved one, and therefore, the aforementioned person feeling as though their world has been destroyed. Analysis of Auden’s “Funeral Blues”Ģ0th century poet W.H Auden’s 1936 poem, “Funeral Blues” focuses on themes of dependence, death, and grief. Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods įor nothing now can ever come to any good. The stars are not wanted now put out every one, I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. He was my North, my South, my East and West, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,īring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, The speaker ends the poem with how nothing matters to him anymore, as nothing can take him back to the past. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for anyone in "Funeral Blues.W.H Auden’s “Funeral Blues,” written in 1936, illustrates a funeral scenario where the speaker expresses his sadness over the loss of a loved one, and the respect and silence that was present, followed by past memories. But not in Auden's "Funeral Blues." This is just a really sad poem about death. There's usually a small moment of optimism buried somewhere in them. In a lot of elegies (poems like this one that commemorate a person's death), the speaker will offer some hope for the future, or will talk about how the dead person will live on in memories and poetry.Totally hopeless, the speaker mopes that nothing will ever be good again.
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The last line of the poem is another whammy.He doesn't want to see any sign of the wonders of nature because he's so down in the dumps. In these final lines, the speaker continues his hyperbolic thinking and asks us to get rid of the ocean and the wood (by "wood," he probably means the forests).Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood For nothing now can ever come to any good. It's almost as if he wants to blot out everything in the world except his own mourning. All of these romantic and natural images-the stars, the moon, the sun-are too painful for him. Even though no one could ever "dismantle the sun," the speaker's grief is so intense that he wishes that we could.But his extreme, hyperbolic commands are his expressions of his extreme grief. Does the speaker expect us to really do this? Of course not.Now his grief is so extreme, it's affecting the way he sees the cosmos. Reentering imperative land, he demands that someone, whomever he's talking to, put out the stars, pack up the moon, and take apart the sun. After that devastating line 12, the speaker grows even more mopey in these lines.
![funeral blues funeral blues](https://www.poemhunter.com/i/poem_images/415/funeral-blues.jpg)
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,