What is the main message of Funeral Blues?
Death. Death is the subject and main theme of “Funeral Blues.” Through the poem Auden makes a compelling statement about the devastating effects that the death of a loved one has on those left behind. The speaker has just lost someone for whom he/she had a deep love.
What literary devices are used in Funeral Blues?
Within ‘Funeral Blues’ Auden makes use of several poetic techniques. These include caesura, anaphora, alliteration, enjambment and hyperbole.
What kind of poem is Funeral Blues?
Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is an elegy, a poem of mourning, in this case for a recently deceased friend. Its title has multiple meanings.
Who is the speaker addressing in Funeral Blues?
There’s no one answer to these questions, but since the poem is called “Funeral Blues,” it would be pretty legitimate to propose that the speaker is addressing an audience of mourners as a funeral. So this is a public poem, in a way—a poem meant for lots of people to hear.
What is the tone of Funeral Blues?
The Mood in Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden The poem, “Funeral Blues”, by W.H. Auden tells about a person’s grief and is successful in creating a very sad and depressing mood. This is achieved by the poet’s use of language, word choice and sentence structure.
Are Funeral Blues satire?
Auden first wrote it in 1936 as part of The Ascent of F6, a play that he co-wrote with Christopher Isherwood. In the play, the poem was satirical, which means that it was snarky, mocking, and overblown. It poked fun at a dead politician, which is maybe not so classy, but something we’re all guilty of now and then.
Is Funeral Blues an elegy?
“Funeral Blues” is best thought of as an elegy, given that it’s meant to memorialize someone who has died (or perhaps just disappeared from the speaker’s life). It has 16 lines, divided into four four-line stanzas, or quatrains.
Why was Funeral Blues written?
It was written as a satiric poem of mourning for a political leader. Auden then included the poem in his book Another Time (Random House, 1940) as one of four poems headed “Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson”; the poem itself was titled “Funeral Blues”.
What is the hyperbole in Funeral Blues?
The first stanza of W. H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” contains a number of hyperbolic, or exaggerated, requests for silence. The speaker exaggerates because he asks that all clocks be stopped, all telephones turned off, no dogs bark, no pianos played, and that the drum that is to mark the funeral procession be muffled.
