"Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden

Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

Funeral Blues

(1938)

W. H. Auden

(February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973)

Notes

"Stop all the clocks" was originally composed as a cabaret song for the play The Ascent of F6 (1936), co-written with Christopher Isherwood, set to music by Benjamin Britten and sung by British soprano Hedli Anderson. It was later revised and collected in Another Time (1940).

Study Questions

Vocabulary

diction; connotation, denotation
imagery
literal
figurative
overstatement
stanza
couplet
quatrain
scansion
meter
line
line break
repetition
anaphora
rhythm

rhyme

end rhyme
couplet rhyme
perfect rhyme, true rhyme, full rhyme, pure rhyme
masculine rhyme

rhyme scheme

alliteration

consonance

assonance

Sample Student Responses to Auden's "Funeral Blues"

Response 1:

Study Question:

Student Name

2202234 Introduction to the Study of English Literature

Acharn Puckpan Tipayamontri

June 12, 2010

Reading Response 1

Title

Text.

Links

Funeral Blues (relevant background, summary, themes, style)
Scott Hixson, "An Explication of a Poem: W. H. Auden's 'Stop all
the clocks, cut off the telephone,'" ESSAI 7.1 (2010)

Media		Four Weddings and a Funeral, dir. Mike Newell (1994; video clip, 2:14 min.; John Hannah, as Matthew in the film, recites the poem)
		Edward Mendelson, "Behind, 'Funeral Blues,'" All Things Considered, NPR (2007)
		Nemo Shaw, "Funeral Blues" (2012, 3:46 min.)
		Langdon Hammer, Modern Poetry, Yale University (2007; video clips) Lecture 22: W. H. Auden (44:39 min.) Lecture 23: W. H. Auden (cont.) (51:17 min.)
		Tell Me the Truth about Love, BBC (2000; video clip, 58:42 min.; Documentary film looking at the poetry of W H Auden, revealing how it came not just from inspiration but from a rigorous scientific analysis of love itself.)
		The Addictions of Sin: W. H. Auden in His Own Words (2009; video clip, 58:09 min.)

W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden (1907–1973), BBC (brief bio)
W. H. Auden, Poetry Foundation (biography)
Nick Clark, "'Lost' W H Auden journal sheds light on pivotal time for poet," The Independent (2013)

Reference

Auden, W. H. “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.” Collected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber and Faber, 1976. 120. Print.

Further Reading

Auden, W. H., and Christopher Isherwood. The Ascent of F6: A Tragedy in Two Acts. London: Faber and Faber, 1937. Print.

Auden, W. H. Forewords and Afterwords. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. Print.

Auden, W. H. The Poet's Tongue. London: Bell, 1969. Print.

Auden, W. H., and Norman Homes Peason, eds. Poets of the English Language. New York: Viking, 1950. Print.

Auden, W. H. Prose. Vol. 4 1956–1962. Ed. Edward Mendelson. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2010. Print.

Home | Introduction to the Study of English Literature | Literary Terms | English Help

Last updated October 4, 2016