Although the true meaning of the poem can only be known to the author (and that goes for any type of literature), for the reader, there are countless numbers of meanings, ranging from whatever happens to be going on in the life of the reader at the time they read the poem. Frye’s list helps the reader find a good place to start to understand the meaning the poet or author intended, although said meaning will be heavily influenced by the reader’s personal perceptions. There’s really no exact order that this list of levels follows, but the most common is the subsequent: the literal (meaning the exact wording of a piece of literary artwork), the descriptive (or the factual paraphrasing of literature), the formal (which is the structure of images within a poem), the mythic (also called the archetype, meaning the different universal themes in the world), and finally the anagogic (or the images of the ultimate totality; this can include but is not limited to talk or language about God or Satan, Heaven or Hell – more correctly and in a broader sense, it’s anything that the human mind has trouble grasping: things that are like eternity, infinity, reality, the subconscious, etc). (Frye; Smith) Most of the time and unknowingly, the reader will go through some if not all of these levels just by reading a poem. Likewise, the reader’s mind will process these six different levels in the order that it recognizes them – there’s no specific order in which the levels will be processed.
One of the easiest ways to go about interpreting a work of poetry is just to go down Frye’s list in whatever order the levels are presented.
Take, for example, the entire poem “Funeral Blues”. Some people who have read it claim that it is both beautiful and heart-wrenching. The 16 lines tell of the sad process of a funeral and the grief that accompanies it (Auden 1-16). The first stanza sets the scene with the concept of complete and utter silence – it’s a very dark picture that those lines create (Auden 1-4). It seems almost like, because this person has died, the world is no longer a place for things like idle telephone conversations, playing with the dog, or a jaunty tune on the piano – that because this person isn’t living anymore, time itself should stop (Auden 1-4). The second stanza only gets darker. It paints the picture that the whole world should know the unnamed “He” has died; the areoplanes will moan – they will not buzz nor will they hum, but they will moan, their mournful waling drawing the attention of man and animal alike (Auden 5-8). And still, the third stanza gets darker yet. The third stanza, arguably, starts out on a lighter note: Auden is talking about how this man was everything to him; Auden’s entire world revolved around the unnamed “He” (Auden 9-11). It sounds very romantic, to be commonsensical. But it’s the last line – line 12 – that darkens the whole tone because it states, “I thought love would last forever; I was wrong” (Auden 12). Simply put, nothing perfect can, for long, endure.
But it is the fourth and final stanza that is the darkest and most dreary, for Auden writes:
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun
Pour away the oceans and sweep up the wood
For nothing now can ever come to any good (Auden 13-16)
Just imagine the night sky without any sparkling stars or the grand moon shining. There is no sun to shimmer, and there is neither ocean nor forest for it to glow upon. None of it matters anymore because he’s gone; nothing in any part of the world will ever be able to make Auden smile ever again (Auden 13-16).
The mythic or the archetypal is a little harder to identify and will ultimately vary depending person to person. In all, the entire poem is an archetype for a eulogy (Auden 1-16). Equivocally, it could also work for the funeral itself, for the reader gets the image of a solemn procession slowly down the aisle, people of all sorts of importance filing grimly into their seats, and a lone figure stands at the podium, his single, sad voice gently echoing, for is that not what a funeral is comprised of? (Auden 1-16)
In some circles, policemen wearing black gloves is a – daresay – symbol for intense, sedate, somber, reverential times. Generally, it means that one of their own has fallen; today, however, the generations are more accustomed to seeing either black sashes worn across the breasts of the attending officers or a black ribbon across the badge of the surviving officers. Most would agree that “He” wasn’t a police officer and the words were meant to create the picture of great loss and an air of graveness (Auden 8).
Likewise, as an interesting aside, the “He” of the poem is kept rather quite ambiguous. “He” could be anyone – a child, a friend, a brother, a father, an uncle or cousin… or even mayhap a lover. The ambiguity of the word helps to allow readers to connect personally and draw their own conclusions from their emotions. And because Auden doesn’t give the speaker a gender, it allows readers to more fully insert themselves into the place of the speaker and more fully feel the emotions that Auden is trying to convey – namely, some would claim, that of intense loss and grief and a sudden feeling of despondence and confusion and hurt (Auden 1-16).
While reading Auden’s poem – like with any literature – readers should ask themselves either as they read or when they finish, “How do I feel? How does this make me feel? Why does it make me feel this particular way?” Readers should also think about what pops into their heads either as they read or finish reading. Generally, these images are usually the result of the formal level as well as the archetypal or mythic level.
Speaking in an anagogical sense, the poem is a trickle-turned-cascade into Hell. Even as it starts, the poem is already well on its way into the gloomy, desolate depths of a Hell on Earth. It’s a world that most people wouldn’t want to live in – the world that Auden immediately creates right at the very start of the poem (Auden 1-4). The bleak outlook of the poem gets even more depressing as the reader reads on, and they get a further look into what one facet of Hell is really like.
The second stanza gives the impression of weeping angels, lamenting along with the people trapped in that queer version of Hell (Auden 5-8). The doves mentioned in line seven seem to be an out-of-place purity, however (Auden 7). Perhaps these white public doves are the souls that all humans and animals and foliage possess? After all, doves have wings and are able to take flight at any time they please. Likewise, the lightness keeps into the third stanza where Auden talks about his love for “He” (Auden 9-11). Although Auden never says right out that “He” was his entire world, the underlying message is that deep, lasting love – which can be seen both as an archetype (for love is a common theme in many, many poems), but also as anagogic (because what, exactly is love? How does one know that they’re in love? When is love real? Is love real??).
What gets the reader like a slap in the face is that last lone of the third stanza: “I thought love would last forever; I was wrong” (Auden 12). The best literal – meaning the exact word – would be that one little word “forever” (Auden 12). What is forever? How long or how short is forever? After all, isn’t ‘forever’ just a word that humans created to measure a span of time? Granted, yes, people have “set concepts” that in one year, there are 365 days, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. And yet, when it comes right down to it, just exactly what is a second? A second could last but a day; on the same token, 10,000 years could be so achingly ephemeral that it’s nearly bittersweet. One’s life can last but a blink of their eye, yet their most heart-breaking moments can seem to last longer than the very existence of the earth. (This brings about another good question – one that’s quite possibly anagogic as well: why is it that the happy moments when people have the most fun and laughter floats in the air always seem to be over much too fast, yet the hard or sad or boring times seem to drag on and on?)
Everyone wants to believe that something as grand and wonderful as love will last for whatever duration the concept of forever happens to be – or at the very least seem like. But the truth of the matter is – at least according to Auden – that love doesn’t last forever… if at all. It is this fact that drags readers down kicking and screaming into this particular metaphor of Hell. If Hell were to be a coned-vertex, this, surely, would be the sixth or seventh ring towards the tipped bottom.
It also seems quasi-ironic that Auden stacks one concept (love) on top of another (forever) (Auden 12). Although ‘concept’ doesn’t seem like the best word to describe the terms love and forever. Perhaps a term better suited is an idea or thought by the human mind to not only grasp but also explain certain aspects that they themselves are unable to understand entirely. Instead of using such a wordy and complicated phrase, the term ‘concept’ works as an efficient substitute – even though it really doesn’t to the two – or any anagogic – terms justice.
That aside, how does one concept describe another? If the human mind can’t grasp one thing, what makes it think that it will be able to explain said concept with another? Can any concept – anagogic, archetypal, or otherwise ever be fully explained, even if other concepts aren’t used to explain them? Some would say that these ideas are kept just out of reach of the reader, fluttering away every time they stretch out their hand to grab the explanation. Yet, isn’t that the very struggling, confusing essence of life?
If line 12 takes readers to the sixth or seventh circle, surely the last stanza takes them into the heart of the ninth circle where the nefarious point rests (Auden 12, 13-16). There is nothing beautiful left in the world any longer all because “He” is gone from this astral plane (Auden 13-16). There would be no brightness or color in the world that Auden describes postmortem of the other man, only shades of gray (Auden 13-15). Imagine, just imagine, the god-like power Auden gives to himself to make such a depressing world to exist in! “The stars are not wanted now, put out every one”; this isn’t a request – nay – this is a command that Auden gives “For nothing now can ever come to any good” (Auden 13,16).
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