W.H Audens 'Stop all the clocks'

Question 1

Key context on W.H Auden

Answer 1

Born in England in 1907, Auden later settled in the United States, but only after spending years in locales all over the world.

Auden’s poems deal with universal themes such as love, political and social concerns, religion and personal morals, often set against the backdrop of man’s relation to the natural world.

Question 2

Explain the key poetic devices Auden utilises within ‘stop all the clocks’

Answer 2

Most of the poem is delivered through an omniscient, anonymous narrator. But as the lines go on, the amorphous loss becomes more personal the speaker makes use of first-person pronouns.

• Caesura
• Enjambment
• Anaphora
• Alliteration
• Hyperbole.

Question 3

Explain the way in which Auden structures ‘stop all the clocks’

Answer 3

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone”

• The idea of stopping the clocks serves two purposes here. It stops the noise that they potentially make, the annoying ticking sound, but also it signifies the stopping of time. When somebody dies their time is said to be up and this represents that. That is followed up with “cut off” the telephone, the poet could have used the word disconnect, but the idea of being “cut off” acts as a subtle double entendre.

“Let airplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”

• Auden is meticulously clever in the language that he uses. Once again in this stanza, he makes reference to noises. This time though he describes the airplanes as “moaning”. The first thing of importance to note is that the sound of the word “moaning” sounds a lot like the word mourning.

“Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves”

• In the next line the narrator evokes the image of the “dove”. The dove is a powerful icon, especially from a religious standpoint. It represents purity and peace, drawing us back to the narrator’s desire for quiet.
• Is the suggestion here that he wants a commonplace animal to dress formally and pay its respects, to signify that the loss of this person is a loss to everybody. The next line suggests so as it recommends that even the traffic police should be in mourning. Wearing black gloves would be a sign of respect to the departed.

Stanza 3 talks explicitly about what the person they are mourning meant to them. The speaker is lost, physically and emotionally, without their partner.

The opening line to the final stanza of the poem is actually is among the more striking in the entire poem. It describes the listless feeling one experiences when everything seems pointless and irritating.

The stars represent hope and love and the narrator has no interest in these things at this point. Their grieving has put them in a, figuratively, very dark place. The theme of darkness continues as they then talk about dismantling the heavens. They truly feel that they cannot continue now they have lost their loved one.

Question 4

What is ‘stop all the clocks’ also known as?

Answer 4

Funeral blues