payment page
Study Tools
Overview
“Funeral Blues” is a poem by the British-American poet W. H. Auden
. As suggested by its title, the poem centers on a speaker who is attending the funeral of a loved one, the loss of whom has left the speaker emotionally devastated. Initially written as a song, the poem first appeared in a 1936 play called The Ascent of F6, which Auden cowrote with Christopher Isherwood. In that context, the poem had a satirical effect. However, when Auden subsequently revised the text and published it as a poem, it took on a melancholy tone. Though largely forgotten in the decades after its publication, “Funeral Blues” returned to public attention when it appeared in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Ever since, it has been one of Auden’s best-known poems.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “Funeral Blues.”
