Funeral blues imagery. Funeral Blues: A Literary Review of the Poem: [Essay Example], 657 words GradesFixer 2022-10-13
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"Funeral Blues" is a poem written by W.H. Auden that uses vivid imagery to convey the sense of loss and grief experienced after the death of a loved one. The poem begins with the lines: "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone." These lines immediately create a sense of isolation and disconnection from the outside world, as the speaker wants to halt all communication and distractions.
The imagery in these lines also evokes a sense of timelessness, as if the clocks and telephone represent the passing of time and the speaker wants them to stop in order to pause their grief. The reference to the dog being silenced with a bone suggests that even the animal's natural instincts must be silenced in the face of such loss.
The poem continues with the lines: "Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood." These lines are even more extreme in their imagery, as the speaker wishes to destroy the very foundations of the natural world in order to erase their pain. The moon, sun, ocean, and wood are all symbols of life and the natural order, and the speaker's desire to dismantle them reflects the depth of their despair.
The final stanza of the poem includes the lines: "For nothing now can ever come to any good." These lines suggest that the speaker has lost all hope for the future, as they believe that nothing good can come from the present moment. This sense of hopelessness is further reinforced by the final line of the poem: "The stars are not wanted now: put out every one." The stars are often seen as symbols of hope and guidance, but the speaker wants them to be extinguished, as they can no longer find solace in their light.
Overall, the imagery in "Funeral Blues" is extremely powerful and evocative, effectively conveying the sense of loss and despair experienced by the speaker after the death of a loved one. The speaker's desire to halt the passing of time and destroy the natural world reflects the depth of their grief and their inability to find comfort in the things that once brought them joy.
Funeral Blues: A Literary Review of the Poem: [Essay Example], 657 words GradesFixer
Auden as really demonstrated his use of figurative language. Every inch of the outside world should respond appropriately to such a death. Death is a way of life, and everything living will die. Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. The speaker is trying to show his love for his friend by asking very unreasonable things. His style was varied and versatile, as he wrote poems in all verse forms, some extremely long, some very short, and incorporated all kinds of knowledge into his poetry.
The poem presents many themes about life and its creation. In addition the hyperboles use by the author, gave the readers a moment to understand the hopelessness of the speaker. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. In the two examples above the author uses great symbolism to describe the speaker. These longer lines may also symbolize how the speaker feels as his loss seems to go beyond his private life and into the public world.
At the end of this poem, Audin personifies the sun, moon, ocean, and woods; he does not see any point in there beauty anymore now that the lover has died, and wants them to pack up and leave. The sex of the narrator is not a major concern in this poem, but it an interesting point, especially for the time era it was written in, when homosexuals were considered dirty. Though the comments strike a kind of formal noteācoming near to perfunctory, we begin to feel their impact, especially in the last line of this stanza. Feeling grief for a particular death without connection is a complex idea that is often looked down upon, but by employing natural imagery, Roethke challenges the perception of requiring a familial or Alliteration In Wilfred Owen's Anthem For Doomed Youth 1433 Words 6 Pages This connects to the theme because they are not treated individually once they die, but treated only as one of the people died, which is forgotten. The image is effective because, like a compass, the deceased was dependable and one on whom the speaker could always rely.
How is the choice of diction in line 1 of "Funeral Blues" used to convey the speakers tone?
Auden, the true feelings of the speaker are shown in a magnificent way by figurative language. He uses figures of speech that suggest that such objects be removed and put away. Both the first and second stanza give one the impression that the narrator might be mocking the event. Auden does an excellent job of using both old qualities of blues, and adding in his own ideas. Auden from the Poetry Foundation. The use of imagery and symbolism was key to this poem, as it showed the readers the speakers sorrow.
When I heard this poem, it seemed to have been writen for me. In 1946 Auden emigrated and became an American citizen. Funerals play significant role of allowing people to remember the dead, and letting the dead move on. At times an iambic pattern is used, but also not consistently. This poem is called a blues song.
Literary Analysis of Devices Used in Funeral Blues
In the third paragraph, he equates the four directions to his partner and how his working week, as well as the Sundays, belonged to the partner, so close was their association. For nothing now can ever come to any good,. The four compass points emphasise that the deceased was an important part of every aspect of the speaker's life. These two examples of imagery the author has used has set the start of the poem perfectly. Evidence of this emotion is found when we deeply admire vast seas or the beauty of the stars against the night sky. Yet, one universal is that the person that is left behind must assemble life and meaning in the shadow and cavernous crater that death causes. This means that the poem at times follows the traditional iambic pentameterābut not line by line.
Auden was the founder for a generation of English poets, such as C. And though I am feeling unutterably maudlin, the situation is ridiculous. By the end of the poem W. Personalises the experience by using the 1st person. He includes the metaphor coffin to either represent his own emotional death he feels now he has lost something so valuable to him or to represent the death of the relationship.
Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks) Poem Summary and Analysis
Blues songs were traditionally composed of three-line stanzas where the first two lines are identical and followed by a concluding riming third line. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. Whether it be sad feelings or happy feelings. Along with the characters loss Auden also describes the characters struggles, and how difficult it can be for a person to stop mourning and grieving death. It could be that the narrator feels that no matter what is done, the funeral will never be adequate to the grief now being felt. There is a sense that no matter what happens, the grief is too big for any funeral to adequately cover it. 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.
