Autumnal Melancholy

Exploring its Symbolism when Dealing with Personal Grief and Loss

As autumn unfurls its vibrant tapestry of reds, oranges, and browns, it often evokes a sense of melancholy. The leaves fall like russet tears, marking the transition from the lushness of summer to the stillness of winter. This season, rich in symbolism, is a recurring motif in art and literature, representing transition, decay, and loss. Autumn forces us to confront the inevitability of change, reminding us that we are but a small part of the greater natural world and to bear witness to the death that follows the vibrant life of spring. While we may now associate this season with cosy sweaters, hot drinks, and crackling fires, its underlying melancholy lingers in the crisp air, serving as a memento mori. For those grappling with their own grief and loss, autumn poses unique challenges, compelling us to seek solace in a world that forces us to confront these harsh realities.

Winter Swans At Coole - W.B. Yeats 

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

In literature, autumn is frequently portrayed as the twilight of the year, a liminal space between the vitality of spring and the bitter winter cold. Notably, this is illustrated in W.B. Yeats’ poem, The Wild Swans at Coole. He pairs the image of the trees’ ‘autumn beauty’ with the ‘twilight’ setting to demonstrate this cyclical and transient nature of life, imbuing the scene with a sense of stasis, reflection, and tranquility as the speaker contemplates ephemeral human existence with the ineffable immortality of nature. This evokes a part of grief that I had never considered before I had experienced it: our loved ones who pass away are frozen in time like a pressed flower, never to bloom again in the spring, while we are meant to continue to grow. At first, I felt indignant and outraged at the unfairness of it all. How am I supposed to continue without them? How can the world keep turning or the seasons keep changing without our departed loved ones here to witness it?

As someone who has a history of mental illness, it feels cruel that someone so precious, beautiful, and ready for life should be taken away so soon. A bright light was extinguished. Whereas someone like me, flickering and dim, continues to burn. It's not fair. I've always known it's not fair; the guilt tastes like ash in my mouth. Throughout Yeats’ poem, the speaker focuses on these swans’ stasis throughout the years despite this change. They remain a collective mass that implies a monolithic unity, creating an illusion of immortality. This image is a microcosm of the enduring vitality of nature. We, too, will one day enter the winter of our lives, fall to the ground, and bring new life to the soil, much like autumn leaves. It comforts me to apply the permanence of the swans to ourselves. Through the lens of Yeats’ poem, we can interpret this season as a reminder of the human condition, not just as individuals who cannot be resurrected and become lost to the ravages of time, but as integral parts of the regenerative whole of nature, forming a larger community that creates new life as it witnesses death.

Autumn Rhythm, by Jackson Pollock 1950, Enamel on canvas, 105 x 207 in. (266.7 x 525.8 cm), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/57.92

Another one of my favourite expressions of autumn is found in Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm (Number 30, 1950). He employs a dripping technique in which paint is splattered, flung, and pooled onto the canvas to create an expressionist, non-representative explosion. The arches, curves, overlapping colours, and frenetic peaks of colour vividly illustrate the boundless nature of existence, its continuous flow without a clear beginning or end. Both the melancholic atmosphere conveyed by the dark colours and the chaos of this tempestuous expression reflects an internal turmoil and emotional turbulence, as well as the larger mutability of nature . The all-consuming contrast between the black and white paint conveys a liminality, changeability, and duality within autumn - the bountiful harvests and the withering trees, the transition from summer to winter. The lack of typical autumnal imagery is striking as Pollock encapsulates a visceral feeling, a power beyond the individual, he illustrates the greater cycle of life just like Yeats’ swans.

There’s a promise of change that lies beyond autumnal decay, one that promises more than ornate carpets of leaves and petals of breath that bloom in the air. The words of F. Scott Fitzgerald come to mind: "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” Perhaps in this lies a possible comfort to find in this autumn. It serves as a poignant reminder of our place within the vast universe.

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