Prob number two: Chanson D'automne

There are few things more pretentious than reciting a poem in French. Perhaps this is because for a long time French was considered a cultured way to speak and likewise verse was a more cultured way to write.  In any case, there's one French poem I think everyone should know: "Chanson D'automne" by Paul Verlaine.

Les sanglots longs

des violons

de l'automne

blessent mon coeur

D'une langueur

Monotone.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

Sonne l'heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure;

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.

Translators have modified the poem slightly to fit an English rhyme scheme but in its original French I find the poem especially sad. Verlaine characterizes himself through a description of Fall. He paints the soundscape of the aching season with emptiness and despair, of time lost and wasted, and ultimately death. 

Though the poem was first published in 1866 it became especially significant in 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France. The French people were tired, restless, full of despair. They were also like dead leaves blowing from here to there in the wind. That's why Verlaine's poem was used as a symbol of unity for the Free French movement.

Under the Vichy government in France, Radio Londres broadcast BBC messages to the French resistance in code to inform them of the allies plans to liberate France. Twenty-four hours prior to D-Day Georges Bégué began his broadcast with a personal message:

Les sanglots longs/ Des violons/ De l'automne/ Blessent mon coeur/ D'une langueur/ Monotone.

The message alerted the French people that D-Day would begin and soon the people would be liberated from the "Monotonous Languor" in their lives.  Here is a video on youtube with the broadcast.

Poetry is important to History because it documents the human experience in familiar metaphors we can all find some universal truth in. Since languages are social constructs and only have meaning within a group of people who acknowledge those meanings, poetry continues to change shape and form from generation to generation. As we head into the future, we can use poetry to continue to communicate with one another so long as one is receptive enough to listen to what is behind the words.
~Ellen