INTRODUCTION (by Arrantxa Sarrió Chaqués)
VICTORIAN POETS (by Inma C. Sanchis Garcia- Astilleros)
PRE- RAPHAELISTS (By Annalisa Garofalo)
GEORGIAN POETS (by Tania Sendra Ferragud)
MODERNISM (By Ani Tadevosyan)
THE THIRTIES (BY
SARA)
The poets
who wrote in this period had something in common: they grew up in a period of
social, economic and political turmoil. Perhaps as a consequence of these
facts, themes of community, social injustice and war seem to dominate the
poetry of the decade. The poets who belong to this period were all politically
active on the Left.
(cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_poetry#The_Thirties)
Within
this poetic movement, we are going to focus our attention on W.H. Auden who was an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of
the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic
and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and
its variety of tone, form, and content. He wrote a lot of poems dealing with this
topic of politics but we have chosen Funeral Blues in order to analyse
it.
(cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden)
I agree with that of he deals
with moral and political issues, although there are some people that think that
Funeral
Blues,
one of his poems, is a simple poem about the end of a love affair. Others think
that it is an anti-imperialistic satire; others say that as a homosexual, he talks about his lover.
(cf. http://www.eliteskills.com/c/13881)
In my
opinion, it means more than this.
Funeral Blues
Stop all
the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent
the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence
the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the
coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes
circle moaning overhead
Scribbling
on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows
round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen
wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North,
my South, my East and West,
My working week
and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my
midnight, my talk, my song;
I
thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
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 woods;
For nothing now
can ever come to any good.
-- W.H. Auden
(cf. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/256.html)
In the 1st stanza,
we can observe that it is being celebrated a funeral and like in a funeral all
has to be in silence. The author of the poem is enumerating a lot of things in
order to exemplify it “cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking,
silence the pianos, muffled drum”. In our opinion the author is trying to tell
us that something has finished and something new is coming, maybe another
period. He says it through “Stop all the clocks”.
The author is saying that all
the people have to wear mourning and have to know what happens writing
“scribbling on the sky the message he is dead” in the 2nd stanza.
In the following stanza, he tells
us that the thing that has finished was very important and a reason for him to
live. He thinks that it will exist forever but it doesn’t happen in this way “I
thought that love would last forever: I was wrong”.
And finally, with some words
and sentences, he wants to transmit us that all the thoughts that he has, have
changed because of some events that have occurred.
From our point of view, he
lives in a period where all the ideas, all their world are broken down because
suddenly something happens that change it completely and all the people feel
that everything has finished, they are disconcerted.
We would like to add that when
the author talks in 1st person, he doesn’t refer only to him, he
refers to all humanity.
We would like to mention that
finally we think that this thing that the humanity has lost is the faith in God
because for them, without God, all is lost. There are some reviewers that also
think it is definitely about God.
(cf. http://www.eliteskills.com/c/13881)
There are other poems written
by Auden that deal with political issues, as for
instance Epitaph on a Tyrant. Here the author is clearly criticizing the
political system all over the poem, as we can observe.
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Epitaph on a
Tyrant |
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Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. |
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By W.
H. Auden
Following his opinion about the
politics, the poet is trying to make us understand that a tyrant invents always
all the words he says because he knows how stupid the humanity is and he thinks
that all the citizens are going to trust him whatever happens. He says it
through “the poetry” (line 2) and “he knew human folly like the back of his
hand” (line 3). And by writing the 5th
line, he is admitting that all humanity does the things the tyrant says without
wondering why. “When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter”.
And
finally, I would like to analyse the manner of finish the poem because he says
in the last line “little children died in the streets”. With this line, he is
showing us the cruelty of the war and how the war doesn’t choose. It doesn’t
mind the age you have.
After
analysing these poems, we can notice that Auden was a
poem very concerned in what happened at the time and he had an anti-politic
manner of think. He is all the time dealing with political issues.
As we
have done in the previous collective works, I have been looking for some points
of relation of this poet and the Love and worship of nature of the Romantic
Movement and it has been impossible for me to find something. The only things
that I can enumerate are some words related to nature that I have find in the Funeral
Blues’ poem like “woods”, “ocean”, “sun” and “stars”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_poetry#The_Thirties
Home: < www.wikipedia.org>
20/04/07
2. http://www.eliteskills.com/c/13881
Home: <www.eliteskills.com>
20/04/07
3. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/256.html
Home: <www.cs.rice.edu>
20/04/07
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden
Home: <www.wikipedia.org>
20/04/07
NEW ROMANTICS IN THE FORTIES (By M. Elena Mármol Rodríguez)
CONCLUSION (By Mari Carmen Mora Vives)