Auden, “Funeral Blues”

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.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

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.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

We can read this poem as a work of mourning and as a funeral and anthropological ritual.

Simplicity of the poem

At the first reading, the reader can see that the poem distills an impression of simplicity :

The sentences

They are built only with the structure : verb (imperative) + complement. There are no or very few relative clauses. So that only simple and essential things are told . We read a poem in its essential, as the moment of death : there is no appearance, no artificiality in the writing.

Dennis Davison, one critic, explains that this poem should be regarded as a burlesque lament : because of the characteristic flat language and exaggerated imagery... But we could also think that Auden doesn't aim at create a parody of sentimental moods : on the contrary, he depicts essential themes with essential language.

The expression of sounds

Sounds are only suggested, thanks to the principle of connotation with terms which evoke the sounds of life : « telephone », « barking », « clocks », « pianos »

Paradox : the poem orders not to make noise or sounds, but in the same time, the poem suggests to the reader those same sounds. So, sounds are conveyed to imagination in a movement of repulsion.

It underlines the power of the poem, the power of writing which is to make real, to make appear things just in saying words. It also underlines an aspect of language which is the gap between word in his materiality (a word is just a succession of letters) and its referential in the reality. Here, the poet tells us words and the reader gives to the word its reference in the world : he imagines the scene with : clocks, telephone, dog...

So, if we can say that the poem is apparently very simple, it also conveys more imagination, and the poem is built both with the simplicity and things that are told implicitly. It seems that this kind of writing is required because of its subject : that is to say the death.

Express the death

The death is not told explicitly, but only suggested :

At first, we can notice that the use of imperative tense implies the lack of the subject : there is no expression of the subject, so no idea of individuality which is a way to underline the death.

Then, some words appear in the poem and convey the idea of death : these words are very expressing as far as the semantic dimension is concerned :

• black is a symbolical word to express death, in occidental countries : it is up to the reader to make the link with its sense.
• dead is paradoxically told in a sharp contrast with the entire poem, which shows simplicity : moreover, this word is the last one of the verse, so its role is underlines.
• as for mourners and coffin, they are the first words in the poem that convey the idea that someone is dead, and it is in a symbolic sense : the coffin is a synecdoche : it is used to evocate that it contains, that is to say the body. Mourners are the people who come to bring the body in order to assure him a life after dead : they personify the link between dead and maybe a sort of life after death.

Between progression and interrogation

Progression

• It is worked out through the kind of words like : off, out, round, on, up, away... it creates a movement in the text, which underlines the fact that there is a dynamism.
• But the poem is also built on a paradox : indeed, the poem begins with an imperative form of a verb : "stop". It expresses the idea of the end, whereas it opens the poem. Moreover, it contrasts with the dynamic of the poem : the writing conveys an idea of movement, totally in opposition with the end of things.
• Another paradox which concerns the rime : "song"// "wrong". The word "song" can be interpreted as the symbol of the poem : and in this case, the fact it is associated with the term "wrong" is maybe a way to deny the poem ? Or, it is a negation of the song in the traditional use : the narrator could prefer another type of song, that is to say, the funeral blues.

Many pifalls ahead

We saw that the poem is built on imperative forms. But in the third stanza, we can notice the use of the subject : « my » is repeated many times ; and we can find the pronoun « I » : it underlines the difficulty of staying objective, and the narrator is tempted to give his subjectivity.

Moreover, the line 12 draws our attention :

I thought that love would last for ever ; I was wrong

it is built on the verb used with a modal "would" which insists on the fact things are not real, are not assured. It emphasis on the difficulty to be sure of the life and of our convictions : it is an entire negation of the self-assurance. And it also highlights the ephemeral moment that is described.

The poem appears as a manner to accompany the dead

Time tenses

We can study the use of the time tense of the verb : there is a graduation in the poem, which is the expression of different states of mind for the narrator :

• in the first stanza : the imperative evoks the fact that we must admit death, and must begin the mourning : the imperative permit to begin a ritual for mourning. It may be a mimetic way to accompany the dead : as a liturgical prayer, because the verbs are stressed ine the first stanza (we can hear it at the reading).


• in the second stanza : the use of -ing expresses the idea that things will always be like this moment : it is a way to regain consciousness of the death.


• in the third stanza : the preterite conveys the necessity to make an appraisal : to take consequences of the life with the person who has died.


• in the fourth stanza : the present is the time of writing, the time which permits to rebuild a life, to go on.

So it is a sort of accompaniment path.

From prosaic to spiritual

There is an evolution in the poem which goes from prosaic elements, which are based on material world, the real banality : "clocks", "telephone", "a dog"... to a spiritual dimension with elements like "stars", "moon", "sun" : it underlines the mimetic link between the poem and the travel of the soul of the dead.

Questionning values

If we consider the last words of the poem :

For nothing now can ever come to any good

we see that the notion of good is associated with « any » so that the system of values is denied : it can't be enough. The poem is situated beyond values.

We can make a parallel between the last words of the poem and the title, « funeral blues » : blues is a polysemic word because it means both :

• low spirits <=> melancholy as a feeling
• and a song often of lamentation in jazz or popular music

The same word designs a genre and a feeling, so both an idea of art and of feeling.

To sum up, we can say that art appears as the last way to express an ideal : as we can see in the form of the poem which is built on 4 lines * 4 stanzas which is the expression of the ideal, perfect form which is closed on itself.