Poetry of Grief and Loss

Overview

This lecture explores the evolution, structure, and themes of W. H. Auden's poem "Funeral Blues," focusing on its shifts from satire to personal lament, poetic techniques, and its expression of grief and loss.

Origins and Evolution of the Poem

• "Funeral Blues" began as a five-stanza satirical funeral poem in the 1936 play "The Ascent of F6."
• Auden later rewrote it as a cabaret song, reducing it to four stanzas with new content and music by Benjamin Britten.
• The revised version became a stand-alone lament published in 1938 as "Stop all the clocks."
• It was retitled "Funeral Blues" in Auden's 1940 collection "Another Time."
• The poem gained renewed attention after being featured in the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994).

Structure and Poetic Devices

• The poem has 16 lines, organized into four quatrains with AABB rhyme schemes.
• All rhymes are masculine (ending on stressed syllables), with mainly one-syllable words and mostly end-stopped lines.
• Predominantly uses imperative mood to issue commands, creating a sense of control amid grief.
• The meter is mostly iambic but varies with substitutions, reflecting raw emotion and irregular speech patterns.
• Three stanzas are dominated by imperatives, enhancing directness and urgency.

Language, Tone, and Imagery

• The diction starts plainly literal (stopping clocks, silencing noises) and shifts to metaphorical in the third stanza.
• The third stanza uses metaphors (e.g., "my North, my South, my East and West") to express the all-encompassing loss.
• The fourth stanza mixes literal and metaphorical, treating cosmic imagery literally to show the speaker’s shattered reality.
• Tone alternates between impersonal orders and deep despair, ending with bleak nihilism ("for nothing now can ever come to any good").
• Extensive use of the possessive "my" and contrasting pairs highlights personal loss.
• Anaphora, caesura, and plosive sounds enhance emotional intensity.

Cultural and Historical Context

• The poem’s title references blues music, a genre linked to sadness and loss, and hints at its musical setting.
• The setting predates digital technology; mechanical sounds and routines heighten the sense of interruption and grief.
• Funeral customs referenced (e.g., crepe bows, black gloves) reflect early 20th-century British practices.

Key Terms & Definitions

• Quatrain — a stanza of four lines.
• Masculine rhyme — rhyme on the final stressed syllable of lines.
• Imperative mood — a grammatical mood expressing commands or requests.
• Iambic meter — metrical pattern of unstressed-stressed syllables.
• Caesura — a pause in a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation.
• Anaphora — repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Review "Funeral Blues" text and identify examples of figurative language and imperatives.
• Prepare notes on how the poem’s form reflects its themes of grief and loss.