The meaning of Auden's demands W.H.Auden was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century literature. Although he was very versatile (he wrote novels, plays, operas, etc) today is best regarded for his poetry. The piece of work I am going to analyze is the poem “Stop all the Clocks”, which has a very traditional metrical pattern (AABB), is written in iambic rhythm, and in which the author opted for an accessible language and concepts to better portray the deep but totally human understandable feeling he tried to express. The poem is about love – even it can be extrapolated to universal love, it is specifically about homosexual love, what is relevant to say because the idea of making it public at that time was, at least, uncommon. Henceforth, I will focus on how the feeling of grief and loss is conveyed by the imperatives, which structure the poem acting as the backbone …show more content…
If the imperatives have had the function of creating an inward grieving atmosphere and spreading the mourning mood, now the author’s demands reflect his outward absolute grief: “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”. As life without his lover is meaningless for him, we attend to the renunciation of all physical things; the universe and the world (the stars, the moon, the sun, the ocean, the wood). The imperatives show how the things he mentions are worthless now and he just wants to point it out. And why is this aversion to life itself? Because “nothing can ever come to any good” after his lover is dead. This line is summarizing the content of the whole poem; the absolutely misery one feels after one’s lover is gone forever. Therefore the fourth stanza expresses the author's renunciation of the physical world – the love he wants cannot be because this person is not there anymore, so he runs away from the part of life that hurts him so
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
The constant process of life and death, driven by an indestructible progression of time, explains the attitude of carpe diem expressed in three poems focused on human love being a fickle matter. Within the poems “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, and “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” by John Gay, the concept of how a shy attitude towards the inevitable end of all life is exposed as an inherently useless view. Nevertheless, though their primary themes and ideas of this constant procession of time are obviously expressed, the manner in which they do this, through figurative language and imagery, is the main point in which each of these three poems can be contrasted and examined
The first six lines of the poem highlight the incompetence of love when compared to the basic supplies for life. Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; It is quite obvious that the narrator highlights everything that requires living in line 1 through 6. Line 1 depicts the deficiency of love as a thing that is not able to provide food as compared to “meat” (1): love cannot hydrate a man as signified by “drink” (1): love cannot refresh a man as signified by “slumber” (2): it does not offer shelter as signified by “a roof against the rain” (2): love cannot give a preserving “floating spar” to a man who is in peril (3): nor will love give air to a “thickened lung” (5): love cannot “set the fractured bone” (6). The narrator describes love as a worthless element in the first 6 lines, but line 7 and line 8 express a tremendous level of violence that people are willing to commit because of the lack of love: “ Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone” (7-8). Line 7 and line 8 is an evidence to prove that no matter what the poet says about love, people are willing to die for it because it is important.
For the most part of the poem she states how she believes that it is Gods calling, [Then ta’en away unto eternity] but in other parts of the poem she eludes to the fact that she feels more like her granddaughter was stolen from her [or sigh thy days so soon were terminate]. One of the main beliefs in these times was that when someone died it was their time; God needed them and had a better plan. Both poets found peace in the idea that God had the children now and it was part of the plan, but are also deeply saddened and used poetry as a coping mechanism.
In the last line of the first stanza, the speaker announces “I have outwalked the furthest city light (3)” and in the next line continues with “I have looked down the saddest city lane (4)”. Here, the absence of light from the speaker’s “outwalk[ing] the furthest city light” is a metaphor for isolation. The urban setting of the poem makes this loneliness ironic, since the speaker is surrounded by other people yet still feels alone. The speaker’s extreme loneliness manifests itself in the way that the speaker views the city; since the speaker is lonely and sad, the lanes of the city also seem sad. Later, the speaker recounts that once “an interrupted cry / came over houses from another street (8-9)” but its purpose was “not to call me back or say good-by (10)”. These lines reference the speaker’s lack of human interaction, which only contributes to their loneliness. Soon after, in lines12 and 13, the speaker states “One luminary clock against the sky / Proclaimed that the time was neither wrong nor right”. The clock’s description as “luminary” implies that the sky is dark, complementing the poem’s bleak mood. This set of lines also contains an additional metaphor comparing life to time (which makes sense, considering that life is constrained by time); by noting that “the time was neither wrong nor right”, the speaker also reveals that the magnitude of the isolation that they have experienced is emotionally numbing. The speaker is not happy, so the time is not right; however, the speaker is so numb that they can no longer experience sadness, so the time is not wrong either. The speaker summarizes their experience with loneliness with the final line (a repetition of the opening line), “I have been one acquainted with the night (14)”. The significance of the night in
The theme of the poem is that nature will outlive humans. For example, when the poet explains “Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly” she is implying that animals, the weather, plants, and everything a part of nature would not change if humans were gone (lines 9-10). Even though humans have been a part of nature for so long, they do not rely on us in order to thrive. Furthermore, when
The phrasing of this poem can be analyzed on many levels. Holistically, the poem moves the father through three types of emotions. More specifically, the first lines of the poem depict the father s deep sadness toward the death of his son. The line Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy creates a mental picture in my mind (Line 1). I see the father standing over the coffin in his blackest of outfits with sunglasses shading his eyes from the sun because even the sun is too bright for his day of mourning. The most beautiful scarlet rose from his garden is gripped tightly in his right hand as tears cascade down his face and strike the earth with a splash that echoes like a scream in a cave, piercing the ears of those gathered there to mourn the death of his son.
...nsight to address the lack of courage and faith that plagues every human being. “The poem succeeds admirably in registering a mood not merely of disillusionment, but of personal weakness” (Morace 950). Without the faith and courage to face the final judgment, and move on to the afterlife, one will be left to linger in purgatory.
Although the speaker acts extremely conceded in parts of the poem, perhaps he is actually insecure and fears that another man will steal the heart of his lover. Maybe the sun is symbolic of another man, which may be the reason that the speaker is really upset. It is also a possibility that the speaker realizes that he is getting old and is worried that his "time" is soon going to run out. He seems to worry a lot about "time." In the first stanza, he is saying how love is eternal and should not be measured by seasons, hours, days, or months.
He likens his poetry to nature also. He uses "words, like weeds..." (5.9) to envelope himself from the pain. His poem is "this poor flower of poesy" (8.18) but he writes it anyway since it once pleased his dead friend. "I go to plant it on his tomb./ That if it can it there may bloom,/ Or dying, there at least may die" (8.22-24). At this point he is considering the possibility of life continuing, at least through his poetry. Yet he does not seem to care about this possibility strongly. If there is no life within his poetry, then he feels its proper place is dead with his friend. Further into the poem, the immediate frenzy of grief has subsided, and he reflects upon his grief more calmly. "Calm is the morn without a sound,/ Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only through the faded leaf/ The chestnut pattering to the ground" (11.1-4).
?Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephones?, this describes how Auden wanted to be excluded from the world while he was mourning his loss.
In conclusion death should be celebrated because if life is a gift in which every day is a new day to accomplish new goals and conquer any obstacle death should be the end of a satisfy life that live pleasantly . The poem emphases that idea of taking death as a new chapter, in which we remember all the encounters we have had from childhood memories to new experience we had as we get older. In so many ways death comes as our birth starts expected in some point but unpredictable when the moment would come.
Auden’s lines makes it possible to read his meaning in a variety of ways. Mourning the
The first section is called “Burial of the Dead” which is a reference to a burial service in a church. In the poem it says that April is the cruelest month, which is ironic because April is normally considered to be the month of renewal. In the beginning of the poem, the passing of seasons, symbolizes a natural cycle of death and a “new beginning”. In this section of the poem, historical context is represented because the deaths are symbolically the soldiers and other casualties that were lost in the war.... ...
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.