Into the setting sun …

The long sobs of autumn’s violins Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.

PAUL VERLAINE’S SYMBOLIST VERSE SHINES THE LIGHT of absolute truth on our emotions at the waning of the year, casting long shadows across a bright and shining summer, now merely a memory. The poetry of “Chanson d’automne” is even more elegiac given that, this year, our bright and shining summer was not so much a memory to savour, as a hope that went unmet. But no matter, the culprit of our own climate catastrophe, be it La Niña, the polar jet stream, the gods of your temples or Two-Tier Keir, the city was no place to suffer this summer — nor any kind of summer. I have written before about the pleasures to be found in pastoral England. But if your blood is too rich for rustic pursuits, yet your…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2024

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