Part A

Part B

Question 2: Why does the poet repeat imperative verbs throughout the first two stanzas? What is the effect of this technique?

Question 1: What technique has the poet used in the opening line "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone"?

Question 3: How has the poet created a sense of universal mourning in the second stanza? Explain with ONE example from the poem.

Question 4: Analyze the shift that occurs in the third stanza. What does the line "He was my North, my South, my East and West" reveal about the speaker's relationship with the deceased?

Question 5: Identify the poetic devices used in the third stanza and explain how they contribute to expressing the speaker's grief.

Question 6: Compare the tone and imagery of the first two stanzas with that of the final stanza. How does this change reflect the progression of the speaker's emotional state?

Question 7: In the second stanza, the poet includes the image "Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves." What is the significance of comparing the public to doves, and what effect does this comparison create?

Question 8: How does Auden use hyperbole in lines such as "Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun" and "Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods"? What does this exaggeration reveal about the speaker's despair?

Question 9: Analyze the final line "For nothing now can ever come to any good." What is the significance of this statement as the poem's conclusion, and how does it relate to the title "Funeral Blues"?

Question 10: The poem uses personification in the phrase "Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead." Identify the personification here and explain how it contributes to the poem's overall emotional impact.

Question 11: Explain how the speaker's use of natural and cosmic imagery (stars, moon, sun, ocean, woods) in the final stanza functions as an expression of grief. What does this imagery suggest about the scope and intensity of the speaker's loss?

Question 12: In the third stanza, the speaker lists multiple aspects of life that the deceased occupied: "my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song." What does this catalogue of details suggest about the deceased's importance in the speaker's life?

Question 13: The poem's structure moves from personal mourning rituals to cosmic destruction. How does this structural progression mirror the psychological journey of extreme grief? Use specific examples to support your analysis.

Question 14: What is the function of the metaphor "He was my North, my South, my East and West"? How does this metaphor encapsulate the entire relationship between the speaker and the deceased?

Question 15: Discuss how Auden uses the contrast between the mundane (telephones, pianos, policemen) and the impossible (extinguishing stars, dismantling the sun) to express the speaker's emotional devastation. What effect does this juxtaposition have on the reader's understanding of grief?