Perspectives

In order for you to better understand the poem “Stop All the Clocks” by W.H. Auden and engage in a meaningful dialogue about the text, it is useful to put the poem into perspective by addressing the questions in the extra material from Wider Contexts. We will look at the sonnet genre and compare the text with two poems by Thomas Hardy and Roger McCough's "Stop All the Cars".

Literary Context: The sonnet genre

The sonnet is a 14 lines poem organised in three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme usually follows the pattern abab cdcd efef gg and the rhythm is iambic pentameter. This means that lines generally have 10 syllables, out of which five are stressed.

Usually, the first stanza in a sonnet sets the subject, while the second and the third develop its theme. The last couplet functions as a conclusion.

As you have seen, “Stop All the Clocks” does not follow a tight, fixed scheme when it comes to rhythm. Though most of the poem is written in iambic pentameter just like a sonnet, it also includes iambic hexameters and trochees which are not really specific to sonnets.

Furthermore, the number of lines in “Stop All the Clocks” is 16, while sonnets have only 14 lines. Last but not least, the rhyme scheme in Auden’s text does not follow that of the sonnet; instead of abab, it is aabb.

Thomas Hardy, “The Voice” and “After a Journey”

In what follows, we will look at two poems by Thomas Hardy which also deal with the topic of lost love and compare them to W. H. Auden’s poem.

“The Voice”

In “The Voice”, a first person narrator, probably an alter-ego of the poet, addresses a woman who is no longer present. Though it is not directly stated, it is implied that this ...