146 Poetry for Students
Source: Wendy Perkins, in an essay for Poetry for Students,
Gale, 2001.Jeannine Johnson
In the following essay, Johnson contends that
the title “Funeral Blues” is a somewhat mislead-
ing one, since this poem’s primary concern is not
with death but with love.Auden’s poem “Funeral Blues” is better
known by its first line, “Stop all the clocks, cut off
the telephone,” and perhaps for good reason. As he
did with many of his poems over the course of his
career, Auden made several changes to the lan-
guage of “Funeral Blues” as he prepared it for re-
publication. In addition to these revisions, Auden
placed the poem in different contexts at different
times, and these contexts affect its meaning almost
as much as the words themselves. The poem first
appeared in the 1936 play, The Ascent of F6.The
poem was then significantly revised and published
under the title “Funeral Blues” in Auden’s 1940
collection, Another Time.This poem was also in-
cluded in Collected Shorter Poemsand Collected
Poems,published in 1966 and 1976, respectively.
Though the text of the poem remained the same as
it was in Another Time,in both these later volumes
it was presented with only the title “IX,” as one
poem in a sequence called “Twelve Songs.”
Thus, over forty years, the poem underwent
several transformations until it took on its final
shape and title inCollected Shorter Poemsand Col-
lected Poems.It is significant that in the last vol-
ume of Auden’s verse the poem appears exactly as
it did in Collected Shorter Poemsand that he con-
tinues to call it “IX,” not “Funeral Blues.” Although
Collected Poemswas published three years after
Auden’s death, the poet had nearly total control
over its production, and the volume presents all the
poems Auden wished to preserve, and in their fi-
nal form. The other lyrics in the series “Twelve
Songs” are various types of love poems. In replac-
ing the title “Funeral Blues” with a number, Au-
den may have signalled that it, too, is a love poem
of sorts. Thus, although a funeral provides the oc-
casion for reflection and mourning, the impetus be-
hind this poem is not to understand death, but to
understand love.
Nevertheless, first and foremost “Funeral
Blues” expresses the pain of loss. (Despite the
questions I raise concerning the title, for the sake
of convenience, I will continue to refer to this poem
as “Funeral Blues.”) The poet calls for quiet and
for reverence: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the tele-phone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy
bone, / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
/ Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.” The
only sound the poet will allow is that of a “muf-
fled drum” and, of course, of his own verse. Ac-
cording to the literary critic John Fuller, Auden first
wrote the poem for inclusion in the 1936 play, The
Ascent of F6,an allegorical tale about power in
which the hero is mountain climber Michael Ran-
som. The poem is sung in response to what Fuller
calls “the phantasmagoric death of James Ransom,”
Michael’s brother (W. H. Auden: A Commentary).
The poem in this drama is comprised of five stan-
zas, and it is sung by two characters, Lord Stag-
mantle and Lady Isabel. The first two stanzas are
identical to those of the poem later published as
“Funeral Blues,” but the last three have nothing in
common with the last stanzas of the later version
of the poem. In them, Stagmantle and Isabel reflect
on the fates of other people in their climbing party,
and the purpose of the song is to chastise Michael
for causing the death of his brother. However, the
drama is based in fantasy, and James’ death is not
real, but only imagined. Therefore, the tone is rel-
atively comic, or at least not as tragic as the poem
in isolation might suggest.
When the poem appears as “Funeral Blues” in
Another Time,the text is much changed. There it
stands as the third of four poems in the sequence
“Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson.” In
these cabaret songs the singer is reflecting on the
death of her lover, but they are contained in a sec-
tion of the book called “Lighter Poems.” The tone
becomes slightly more serious when the poem ap-
pears in Collected Shorter Poemsand Collected
Poems.In these later volumes, “Funeral Blues” is
surrounded by eleven other poems, all written be-
tween 1935 and 1938. The subject of loss is com-
plemented by other themes, such as desire, secrecy,
and love (and, specifically, homosexual love).
Though these themes are more explicitly explored
in the other eleven poems, they resonate impor-
tantly in this one, and they disclose the motivation
behind the poet’s hyperbolic language.
The poet’s grief is so great that he makes no
attempt to comprehend death or to meditate upon
it: he simply accepts it as the end of not one man’s
life but as the end of all life. The poem engages in
hyperbole, or dramatic overstatement, closing with
the astonishing proclamation that “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.” In the face of this death, theFuneral Blues