Auden wrote this poem in 1936 as a satirical lament for a political leader; it became famous when recited in a 1994 film as a genuine elegy for a lover. The transformation reveals something about the poem itself: its demands are so extravagant (stop all the clocks, prevent the dog from barking) that they transcend irony and become simply true to the experience of grief. The quatrains build toward impossible commands. It is the most widely known funeral poem in English, proof that a poem can outlive its original context entirely.