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The poet appears to be suffering the loss of someone close. He calls for a public lament, demanding that
nothing may get in the way of his mourning.
In another sense, however, there appears to be a certain amount of humour in this poem. Is the poet,
then, being sincere or is he making gentle fun of funerals in general?
ABOUT THE POET
Wystan Hugh Auden is regarded by many as the most influential poet of the 20th century, a man who
inspired other giants of the poetic world such as C. Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender.
He was born in 1907 in York, the son of a medical practitioner and a university-educated mother. He
attended Oxford University where he graduated in 1928 with a lowly 3rd class degree in Literature.
While at Oxford, he became known for his poetry and his eccentricities and, most notably, for his series
of homosexual relationships.
Auden became a schoolmaster, which later allowed T.S. Eliot to criticise him for allowing his pedantic
teaching style to influence his poetry.
In 1935 he married Erika Mann, a German lesbian who needed to escape from Germany. The marriage
was one of convenience, designed purely to provide her with British citizenship.
During the 1930s Auden became enamoured with left-wing politics and social causes, although he would
later tire of the contradictions inherent in this. Eventually he would claim that politics and art could never
be combined.
In January 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war, he sailed for New York. Because this was seen as
desertion from his homeland which was about to be embroiled in conflict, he lost much of his reputation
in England. As a result, he settled in the United States and eventually took out citizenship there.
While in the United States, he established a permanent relationship with the 18 year old poet, Chester
Kallman, who would become his lifelong companion.
Auden would lecture literature at several universities, including Oxford where his tenure demanded that
he give only three lectures per year. He would die in Vienna in 1973, shortly after delivering a guest
lecture.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
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.
- Name the symbols of death that can be found in this verse. (N.B. Remember to use your own
words.) (6)
[Need help?]
- No sound may be made to disturb the dead -- cutting off the telephone, stopping the dog from
barking;
- No joy and happiness -- silencing the pianos;
- The slow drum beat to signal the arrival of the dead body.
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- What was the purpose in stopping the clocks? (4)
[Need help?]
It is an ancient custom that, as soon as a person dies, all the clocks in the house must be stopped.
This is presumably to signal the end of time for the deceased. It was also a way in which to mark the
exact time at which the person died so that the mourners would be informed when they arrived at the
house to mourn the dead.
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- Why must the dog be offered "a juicy bone" and not just "a
bone"? (4)
[Need help?]
Apart from providing a more succulent description, it is also a question of rhythm. Each line of this poem
contains ten syllables.
If the poet had stated merely "a bone", he would have been a syllable or two short in this line. The
extra syllables in "a juicy bone" do the trick.
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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.
- Why does the poet use the upper-case in "He is Dead"? (2)
[Need help?]
The use of the upper-case proclaims the importance of the deceased person in the life of the poet. He
wasn't just any person, but a very important one.
One could also argue that the deceased was almost God to the poet, for one usually uses the upper-case
to denote God.
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- Explain the relationship of the deceased with the poet. How do you know? (4)
[Need help?]
It is possible that the deceased was a sexual partner to the poet. W.H. Auden was well known for his
homosexual relationships.
Note that the dead person is addressed as "He", and that person was considered as so very
important to the poet that the world is said to be stopped by his death. In the final verse, the poet also
speaks about eternal love.
On the other hand, this is pure conjecture. Unless we know for certain who the person was, one could
also argue that the deceased was simply a male who was a very close friend of the poet, perhaps a soul-
mate.
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- Explain the language device used in the word "moaning"? (4)
[Need help?]
This is an example of onomatopoeia, is it not?
The word "moaning" is an imitation of the sound made by the engines of the aeroplane, the deep
drone of its engines.
But the sound makes it appear as if even the aeroplane is in torment at the news of the deceased.
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- Why would the message be "scribbled" on the sky? (4)
[Need help?]
"Scribbled" refers to untidy writing.
If aeroplanes were used to write a message in the sky, the wind would quickly disturb the writing to make
it look like an untidy scribble.
Scribble is also writing that is done very quickly, hence a description of writing in the sky from aeroplanes
which are writing very quickly, hastily announcing the death to the world.
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- What would be the purpose of the crepe bows round the necks of the doves? (2)
[Need help?]
The crepe bows would denote that the doves have been decorated in an artificial show of mourning.
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- Why are they referred to as "the public doves"? (2)
[Need help?]
They are "public doves" because they are the doves or pigeons which frequent the public places
like parks or city squares.
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