† Funeral Blues
 By: W.H Auden
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01
W.H Auden: The Poet’s Background
● Wystan Hugh Auden was born on 21st February 1907. Auden was born in York and grew up in and
near Birmingham in a professional, middle-class family. He attended various English independent
schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he
spent five years teaching in British private preparatory schools. In 1939, when World War II started
he emigrated to America and met the love of his life Chester Kallman .
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● Auden came to wide public attention in 1930 with his first book, Poems, followed in 1932 by The
Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938
built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. His works in the 1940s, including the long
poems "For the Time Being" and “The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won
the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a
popular phrase describing the modern era.
The poem: Funeral Blues
“Funeral Blues” (also known as "Stop All the Clocks") is a poem by W.H. Auden, originally written in 1938.
The poem deals with themes of grief, loss, and the profound impact of death on those left behind. Over
the years, it has gained significant cultural resonance, particularly due to its inclusion in the 1994 film
Four Weddings and a Funeral, where it was read as an elegy, further cementing its association with
mourning.
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Structure
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● The poem is 16 lines long and is written in four quatrains consisting of two rhyming couplets all rhymes
are single (located at the end of each line). The poem has a consistent rhyme scheme of “AABB”
● This formal structure provides a sense of order and control, which contrasts sharply with the emotional
chaos the speaker is experiencing. The regular rhyme scheme enhances the rhythmic flow of the
poem, almost mimicking the measured, inevitable march of time, which is juxtaposed against the
speaker’s desire to stop everything in the time of their grief.
● Three out of four of the stanzas are governed by the imperative mood, which is used to demand or
require an action to be performed. It is only found in the present tense, second person.
● The poem’s underlying metre is iambic (de-DUM)but it varies extensively.
● Lines range in length from as few as 9 syllables to as many as 12. Although some ten syllable lines are
written in iambic pentameter and some 12-syllable lines are written in iambic hexameter most lines are
heavily substituted with trochees (DUM-de), spondees (DUM-DUM), cretic foot (DUM-de-DUM) and
anapaest (de-de-DUM) which recreate the irregular patterns of an emotionally raw spoken english
Language and Imagery: Stanza 1
First Stanza:
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"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy
bone."
• The speaker begins with the use of imperative verbs, issuing commands to stop everyday life.
The clocks, telephone, and dog are ordinary elements of daily routine, but the speaker
demands that they cease functioning, symbolizing their wish for the world to pause in
recognition of the loss of their loved one. The act of silencing these items reflects the
speaker’s desire to suppress any sense of normalcy or continuation in the face of death. “Stop
all the clocks” also adds that the persona wishes to stop the passage of time to pause their
grieving or prevent the feeling.
"Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."
• Here, the mood becomes more somber. The speaker calls for a ceremonial funeral
procession, where the traditional “muffled drum” creates a funereal atmosphere. The call to
"bring out the coffin" marks a transition from the personal, intimate domestic space to a public
expression of grief, signalling the need for mourning rituals.
Language and Imagery: Stanza 2
Second Stanza:
"Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead / Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.“
.
• This stanza shifts to a more hyperbolic and dramatic tone; the persona wants to make everyone
experience his grief. The persona now imagines grand gestures of mourning, where even the sky bears
witness to their loss. The word “moaning” implies that the planes, like the persona, are in deep sorrow.
The image of planes "scribbling" in the sky suggests that the death is so significant, it deserves to be
universally acknowledged.
"Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, / Let the traffic policemen wear
black cotton gloves."
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• Again, the persona demands symbolic gestures of mourning. By dressing public doves (symbols of peace)
in mourning attire and making policemen part of the ritual, Auden extends the grieving process into the
public sphere. These exaggerated demands show the speaker’s inability to comprehend why life can go
on as usual when something so monumental has occurred. This also highlights on the fact that the
persona wants normal life to pause for a bit.
Language and imagery: Stanza 3
Third Stanza:
"He was my North, my South, my East and West, / My working week and my Sunday rest.“
• In this deeply personal stanza, the speaker reveals the depth of their attachment to the deceased. The
imagery of geographical directions (the cardinal points) signifies that the deceased was the speaker's entire
world—their anchor, their sense of orientation. This suggests that without the deceased, the speaker is now
lost.
"My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; / I thought that love would last forever: I was
wrong.“
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• These lines emphasize how the deceased permeated every aspect of the speaker’s life, from day to night,
from intellectual conversation to emotional expression. The final line introduces a painful realization: the
belief in the eternity of love has been shattered by death. This tells us that the persona now feels delusional
because he thought that love lasts forever. The persona then feels despair after realising how delusional
he was.
Language and Imagery: Stanza 4
Fourth Stanza:
"The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.“
● This stanza escalates the persona’s desire to undo the natural order. The stars, moon, and sun are
not only celestial bodies but also symbols of hope, guidance, and life. The speaker’s plea to remove
them reflects a deep want to end normalcy. Life, for the persona, has lost all meaning and beauty.
"Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; / For nothing now can ever come to any good.“
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● The final couplet underscores the speaker's despair. By asking for the ocean to be poured away and
the forests to be swept up, the speaker symbolically calls for the end of nature itself, as if the entire
world should cease to exist. The closing line, “For nothing now can ever come to any good,” captures
the overwhelming hopelessness the speaker feels. It conveys a powerful, almost absolute statement
about the devastation caused by loss.
THEMES!
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● Grief and Loss:
The central theme of "Funeral
Blues" is the speaker's
profound grief. The poem
explores the way loss can
dominate and overwhelm a
person's existence. The
intensity of the speaker's
emotions manifests in their
extreme, hyperbolic demands
for the world to stop, as if life
itself should come to an end
because of this death.
● Love and Devotion:
The third stanza reflects how
deeply the speaker loved the
deceased, painting them as the
centre of their world. The
speaker’s devotion is allencompassing, and the death
of their loved one leaves them
feeling utterly devastated,
unable to imagine life
continuing without them.
● Disillusionment:
Auden captures the
disillusionment that follows
the realization that even the
strongest love cannot
prevent death. The line “I
thought that love would last
forever: I was wrong”
expresses a deeply human
sentiment, the shock and
betrayal felt when confronted
with the finality of death.
Thank you!
..Any questions?
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