Talk:Chanson d'automne

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Twenty or thirty years ago, I was in Baghdad with a Frenchman who, as a youth, had been in a farmhouse kitchen listening secretly to the British radio. He told me that the word 'blessent' was varied to 'crevent' or vice-versa for one transmission to warn that the invasion had launched. I have no sources for this but intend to research it. Geoffrey BH 18:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeoffreyBH (talk • contribs)

I have made some significant additions to this article:
 * First, I translated the french version of this same article.
 * I then merged as best I could my translation with the information that had already been posted.
 * Then I provided some information at the end, describing some of the literary techniques used by Verlaine.

There are probably some issues with my work. There were, for instance, no sources in the french version. It would be nice to be able to corroborate the information about VENTRILOQUIST. Also, my french and literary analysis could use some peer review. I welcome both. Orion oxotnik (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Unclear statement
In the first sentence of the article, it is unclear if "one of the best known in the French language" was meant to be about the poem or about Verlaine. An edit should be considered. Orion oxotnik (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that is unclear. It could only be unclear to those who don't speak English very well - "one" cannot possible refer to Verlaine because there is no noun to go with it, it can only refer to the subject of the sentence (poem).  However, if you feel you can make it clearer, feel free. Deb (talk) 09:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song"), one of the best known poems in the French language, was written by Paul Verlaine and in 1866 was included in his first published collection of poetry, Poèmes saturniens.
 * is what I would suggest, if that is the meaning you intended. Part of my confusion was that, while I agree that Verlaine is one of the best know French poets, I was unaware that the claim "one of the best know" could be applied to the poem. - Orion oxotnik (talk) 02:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

External Link & nuances of poetry translations
I added a link to a page I found today atop Google search results for "chanson d'automne". It provides a variety of translation attempts of the poem and discusses some of the difficulties involved in rendering it into English. I did not use his page as a reference when I did my translation. Neither did I make any attempt in my translation to make the English version rhyme or replicate the brilliant musicality of the original. There are some differences between Mr. Holcombe's literal translation and mine. He may have translated the start to the second stanza ("[all] choking" versus "All choke") more accurately than I did, however I feel that he was off a bit in the third stanza. I did also switch words around at the end of the first stanza where I put "monotonous" first and chose not to use "langour" but "listlessness" to create [maybe] a slightly cleaner phrase. - Orion oxotnik (talk) 03:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Subsequent editors have changed my "listlessness" back to "langour". I feel that change is a bit subjective, but either works. There were a few good fixes that bear mentioning:
 * I had inadvertently repeated the word "when" in the second stanza.
 * I had somehow chosen an obscure translation of "Deçà, delà,". I agree with the current "here and there", but "to and fro" might have worked as well, although the latter more closely corresponds to "deçi, delà", which I believe is what was heard in Charles Trenet's song version.
 * I had provided the verb "choke" as a translation for "suffocant", which is incorrect, since the French word is an adjectival form of the verb. It was changed to "choked up", however I modified that to simply "choked", which in my opinion better retains the stop consonant and feel of the original.


 * My translation of "pareil à" to "as if" was changed to "like". The latter is a word that I feel is overused in modern American English and doesn't properly reflect Verlaine's choice of "pareil à" over the more simplistic "comme". I have changed this back to "as if", in part because it retains the rhythm of the French original slightly better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orion oxotnik (talk • contribs) 05:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No Original Research, please
Wikipedia does not publish original research. This means that the original literary analysis has to be removed. On the contrary, literary analysis published in a secondary source may be cited. These are the rules of the game... AmirOnWiki (talk) 09:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If you are referring to the mention of "stylistic devices", I don't think I agree. 100% of readers would agree that these stylistic devices are present. Deb (talk) 12:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, 99.99% perhaps, as I disagree with some of his comments. For instance, the claim that certain words “sound like a violin” is completely subjective IMHO. AmirOnWiki (talk) 17:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that particular comment seems subjective; on the other hand, Verlaine is a poet who is particularly known for his use of sounds to convey his meaning - so the comment is not wrong as such, but it would be better to include sources. I'll see if I can find a reference. Deb (talk) 13:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * While my comments were perhaps subjective, and no doubt could have been better researched (thank you, Deb, for finding a reference to the "violin" piece) I probably misrepresented my analysis as original in my comments above. While some of my translation was original, the comments were simply summarizations of what I was taught in school long ago, not something I thought of entirely independently. --Orion oxotnik (talk) 04:52, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture
The "In popular culture" section of this article was removed because it was felt to be "irrelevant". I disagree and would like to add the section back in. I personally believe the cultural references to be quite relevant, and may represent for others (as they do for me) exposure or connection to this poem that they might not have had otherwise. I also do not believe such cultural references are uncommon or unwarranted here in Wikipedia. I'm inviting discussion on this prior to making the change so that I might better understand the reason it was removed. --Orion oxotnik (talk) 05:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It was a stock song of Charles  Trenet and of other french songster luminaries -surely this is worth a mention. Poor old Trenet was hit with an unjustified double whammy of a collaborator and a pederast accusation shortly after the war. It would be an interesting investigation for someone with better french than mine to see whether  there was any chagrin at Trenet's adopting it, given the former accusation and the poem's association with overthrowing the invader.--— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht Talk/Stalk 23:08, 30 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Just had a gander at the french language version of article on this poem which does mention Trenet with analysis of the tweaks he made to the poem . https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_d%27automne It mentions the other giants George Brassens  et cetera singing it too. Maybe we ought to mention this too. Or will the exclusionist fanatics  jump down our throats ? --— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht Talk/Stalk 23:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

D-Day
Information about the coming use of this famous code had actually leaked in advance to German counter-intelligence in France, and they had told high-level German officers along the channel about it (this is found in many books about D-Day). When the lines finally came, in two batches, they were picked up by the Germans too, but most German units who were told didn't take it seriously and thought it was a prank of some kind. This was due both to the bad weather and to Abwehr in France having a low reputation with the German army themselves. 83.254.136.96 (talk) 00:55, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

grammar in one sentence
In the History/ World War II section, in this sentence: "In preparation for Operation Overlord, the BBC's Radio Londres had signaled to the French Resistance with the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem "Chanson d'Automne" were to indicate the start of D-Day operations under the command of the Special Operations Executive." I think something is wrong - it seems to me that either the words "were to indicate" need to be removed completely or they need to be connected somehow to the "had signaled" part in a way that works grammatically and logically. I am not a native English speaker and not a historian, so I hope another reader wants to edit it :-)