Meet the walking zombie of Year 10 English
The first time I heard W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues", which begins
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.
I thought it was pretty strange that Auden would make such a tasteless connection between dog bones and funerals. I had a post written out asking if this connection was as obvious to everyone else and whether they thought the poet knew about it BUT then Catie and I did some research and it turns out that the reason it sounds so strange is because the poem is actually a joke -- or at least the first part of it started off as one. The first two stanzas come from Auden's play "The Ascent of F6" and are apparently read as a satirical eulogy for a politician. This actually makes me feel a lot better about it, since the alternative was that it was just bad poetry.
So there you go.
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.
I thought it was pretty strange that Auden would make such a tasteless connection between dog bones and funerals. I had a post written out asking if this connection was as obvious to everyone else and whether they thought the poet knew about it BUT then Catie and I did some research and it turns out that the reason it sounds so strange is because the poem is actually a joke -- or at least the first part of it started off as one. The first two stanzas come from Auden's play "The Ascent of F6" and are apparently read as a satirical eulogy for a politician. This actually makes me feel a lot better about it, since the alternative was that it was just bad poetry.
So there you go.