Funeral Blues

E121573

"Funeral Blues" is a famous elegiac poem by W. H. Auden that poignantly expresses grief and the devastation of losing a loved one.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Funeral Blues canonical 2

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (43)

Predicate Object
instanceOf elegy
poem
alsoKnownAs Stop all the clocks
author W. H. Auden
countryOfOrigin United Kingdom
culturalImpact frequently read at funerals
popular in English-speaking countries
expresses desire to halt ordinary life after bereavement
devastation at the death of a loved one
sense that the world has lost its meaning
firstLine Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
focusesOn emotional impact of bereavement
form lyric poem
genre elegiac poetry
imagery cosmic imagery
funeral imagery
silence and stillness
language English
literaryMovement modernist poetry
meter predominantly iambic
mood despairing
sorrowful
narrativePerspective first-person speaker
notableLine He was my North, my South, my East and West
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong
period 20th-century literature
portrays death as total and final separation
love as central to the speaker’s world
rhymeScheme regular rhyme scheme
setting unspecified modern urban environment
structure four quatrains
subject death of a beloved partner
theme death
grief
loss of a loved one
mourning
tone lamenting
melancholic
usesDevice hyperbole
imperative mood
metaphor
personification
widelyAnthologized yes

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

W. H. Auden notableWork Funeral Blues
Another Time containsWork Funeral Blues