League of Legends
The poem Funeral Blues, which was written by W H Aden, is a beautiful poem in which the poet conveys the meaning through rhythm and scarring scenes he paints of lost love and anguish. The poem is about the death of a loved one and the actions taken after in the lead up to the funeral, as can be told by the title. The first stanza is striking with the poet creating a silence In your head; the second describes the preparation in a solemn tone that seems to echo for me as the reader.
In the third stanza you are shown the love and anguish In Its full light through the slow rhythm of he words with many comma’s to add an aura of suspense and depression, male pronouns are used to describe the dead person whose body fills the coffin so the poet Is subtly making reference to his sexuality as though to make a point of his sadness, being gay himself. Finally the fourth stanza finishes the poem with words that suggest a lack of hope from someone who has given up In life. The main ideas that are expressed in the poem are centered on loss: they circle around death and how it affects the surrounding people when it takes a loved one.
The main idea expressed by the poet is that without this person he is writing about his world is unable to go on. You see this in a beautiful scene in ‘Four weddings and a funeral,’ when the poem is read out at the funeral of the readers partner. He talks slowly and as the camera pans out you see the whole audience is crying silently, silence being a key part of W H Addend’s poem. Silence. His last stanza makes me as the reader feel like the world is caving in on me which links into the loss of hope and happiness and completely tears at the reader’s heart.
The mood silently creeps of the page and into the readers mind, illustrating the distress that flows through the lines as though it where a stream. It is dark and without light and as I have said before it was without hope. He focused on using language that could be understood by any age to symbolism that everyone could understand what he was feeling, that it was neither easy nor hard to relate. The poem Is about hopelessness against the force of our nature, of life and of death that the poet conveys through his slow rhythm and depressive mood.
The Imagery used by W H Aden was an essential part of the effectiveness of the emotion behind the poem. He used It to paint pictures that affected the readers. With some very scaring pictures painted through auditory, and some beautiful, sad pictures painted through visual. These are used to make the audience react to the poem as though it where a recount of their own feelings. Prevent the dog from barking with a Juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum” This quote is an example of auditory imagery.
It creates a silent wind in the reader’s ears and the world the poem creates becomes darker due to the idea of silence. Silence is one of the main horrors of death from the poem and it links directly to the sadness of love and life. Personally when I see this line I can hear the beat of a cuckoo clock cutting of mid call, the cord on a telephone, ripped from it’s socket and as the silence becomes more, then suddenly the sound of the slow muffled drums of a parade, making its way towards me. This is an example of great description in my mind because it conveys the significant meaning of the poet’s silence in a few words.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. ” Is an example of visual imagery by themselves the lines are beautiful and peaceful, but they add to the sorrow through their calm, delicate, beauty when combined with the rest of the poem. It is amazing how Aden has intertwined doves into his dark and sorrowful poem as they are a sign of love, peace, holiness and fertility, not death, sadness and the sin of homosexuality in many cultures. “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” This stanza is the most visual, I myself am able to see people covering the stars with black cloth, pulling down the sun, bit by bit, and clearing the land dry and barren. W H Addend’s poem Funeral Blues shows the reader that death is a force stronger than life and love stronger than the both; he does this through the visual imagery he has created throughout the stanzas to create a sense of harsh peace and auditory imagery to chill the reader with the power of silence.
