"Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song") is a poem by

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...

(1844–1896), one of the best known in the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

. It is included in Verlaine's first collection, '' Poèmes saturniens'', published in 1866 (see 1866 in poetry). The poem forms part of the "Paysages tristes" ("Sad landscapes") section of the collection. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

lines from the poem were used to send messages from

Special Operations Executive Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...

(SOE) to the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

about the timing of the forthcoming

Invasion of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 ( D-Day) with the ...

Content

Critical analysis

The poem uses several stylistic devices and is in many ways typical of Verlaine, in that it employs sound techniques such as

consonance In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unple ...

(the repetition of "n" and "r" sounds) that also creates an

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

effect, sounding both monotonous and like a violin. In the second verse, the

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

and pause after the word ''suffocant'' reflect the meaning of the word. At the age of 22, Verlaine uses the

symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

of autumn in the poem to describe a sad view of growing old.

Use in World War II

In preparation for

Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The ope ...

, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's Radio Londres signalled to the

with the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem "Chanson d'Automne" to indicate the start of D-Day operations under the command of the

. The first three lines of the poem, "Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l'automne" ("The long sobs of autumn's violins"), would mean that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks. These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944. The next set of lines, "Blessent mon coeur / d'une langueur / monotone" ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor"), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations, especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15.

Adaptation in songs

In 1940

Charles Trenet Louis Charles Augustin Georges Trenet (; 18 May 1913 – 19 February 2001) was a renowned French singer-songwriter who composed both the music and the lyrics for nearly 1,000 songs over a career that lasted more than 60 years. These songs inclu ...

made changes to the words of the poem in order to change it into a song. There has been speculation that it was the popularity of his version that led to the use of the poem by SOE. A later French singer,

Serge Gainsbourg Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor, composer, and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provocative rel ...

, uses parts of the poem in the lyrics of his song " Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais" ("I've come here to tell you that I am leaving"). The poem was also set to music by French-American artist Laurent de Kiev on his "De Musset à Sardou" album in 2021.

References

External links