By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Funeral Blues’, the title often given to W. H. Auden’s poem that begins ‘Stop all the clocks’, is one of the most famous and universally loved lyric poems on the theme of loss. But this loss is related to a number of other prominent […]
Tag: W. H. Auden
A Short Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ by W. H. Auden (1907-73) was written in 1939, following the death of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats in January of that year.
A Short Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘September 1, 1939’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘September 1, 1939’ is one of W. H. Auden’s most famous poems, although Auden (1907-73) later disowned the poem and banned it from appearing in collected editions of his work. As the poem’s title indicates, ‘September 1, 1939’ was written in early September 1939 […]
A Short Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’
By Dr Oliver Tearle W. H. Auden wrote ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ in December 1938, while he was staying in Brussels with his friend Christopher Isherwood. The museum and art gallery mentioned in the poem’s title, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, is the Brussels art gallery, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de […]
A Short Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘Refugee Blues’
By Dr Oliver Tearle ‘Refugee Blues’ is the title commonly given to the first song in W. H. Auden’s ‘Ten Songs’. The poem was completed in March 1939, while Auden was living in New York. The fact that ‘Refugee Blues’ was part of a cycle titled ‘Ten Songs’ prepares us […]