Funeral Blues, W.H. Auden

Funeral Blues is a medium-length poem divided into 4 stanzas (quatrains) and each one made up of 4 lines. The poem has rhyming couplets. The writer uses these two intense words which create an immediate effect of sadness and melancholy. The blues, in fact, is a sad type of music and it contributes to emphasize the idea of unhappiness, already implied in the word "funeral". The poem is full of verbs in the imperative form to give an emphatic tone to the poem. It also has alliterations ("Working week", "My midnight), anaphors and metaphors (3.1 - 3.3).

In the first stanza he demands silence ("Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone" 1.1;"Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone"1.2; "Silence the pianos and with muffled drum" 1.3) for such an important event and because the coffin must be brought out (1.4). The effect of this first stanza makes the reader curious about what happened.

In the second stanza he wants everyone to know "he is dead" (2.2) and wants animals and human to dress for the mourning of the dead. He makes us understand how meaningful this person was to him.

The third stanza is the one who show us the close relationship between the writer and the dead person. Here was a referring point in the life of the poet . He feels desperate and disappointed by his love expectations.

In the fourth part, the poet goes back to the use of the imperative form because he wants to cancel the nature that once may has been magic to him. He loves this much the bereaved that he has lost hope in good and he's deprived of the meaning of life.

Konstantina Gkritzapi & Teresa Segatto