FUNERAL BLUES
Introduction
W.H. Auden was born in 1907 and is the most famous poet in modern English poetry.
Auden ’s poems were influenced by the poets G. M. Hopkins, T. S. Eliot and W.
Owen, and his own thoughts were influenced by Marx, Freud and Kierkegaard
(philosophers of the nineteenth century). "Funeral Blues" was released in 1938 and
has four sections. In addition to an elegy that mourns the passing of a lover, this poem
actually has another meaning that few people know. The earliest poem was written
during the period of imperialism, and the people were suffering under the dark rule.
The poet thinks that the Western culture under the rule of capitalism is degenerating.
It is an ironic poem used to mourn a political leader. In the 1994 film "Four Weddings
and a Funeral" Matthew quoted Oden's love poem "Funeral Blues" to express his
condolences to the deceased friend Gareth, which triggered a craze.
Analysis of the poem
I will analyze the structure of the style and the rhetorical devices used. In rhyme, each
section of the poem adopts aabb rhyming format, making it read with rhythm and
musical beauty. In the rhetoric, the use of ratio and exaggerated rhetoric is
emphasized. The combined use of simple sentences and imperative sentences in the
syntax accelerates the rhythm of the poem and conveys the sadness of the passing of a
friend.
An important feature of poetic language is the use of a lot of imagery. The imagery is
a specific image that can stimulate our feelings. The specific function of the poetic
image is that it can stimulate the human senses, thereby evoking a certain feeling and
suggesting a certain emotional color, so that the reader can follow the guidance of the
image the direction quickly entered the mood of poetry. In "Funeral Blues" we can
find that basically every section has a group of images. The author attaches emotions
to these figurations and paints a scene of pain and sadness in the funeral, which makes
