Annie Playden was apparently much too matter-of-fact for young, passionate, twenty-years old Apollinaire.
However, when she left him to move back to England, he grieved enough to write one of his masterpieces, La chanson du mal-aimé.
This short poem, Annie, is about the impossible encounter with the love one. Apollinaire sets his Annie within a closed garden, in an imaginary Texas (roses, why not, but lime trees ?!). Distance is expressed by means of a religion mostly unknown in Europe.
And loves finds its way through a very fragile link: that both of them wear no buttons on their outfits.
I feel tenderness and regret. Irony, also, and almost a sense of relief.
However, when she left him to move back to England, he grieved enough to write one of his masterpieces, La chanson du mal-aimé.
This short poem, Annie, is about the impossible encounter with the love one. Apollinaire sets his Annie within a closed garden, in an imaginary Texas (roses, why not, but lime trees ?!). Distance is expressed by means of a religion mostly unknown in Europe.
And loves finds its way through a very fragile link: that both of them wear no buttons on their outfits.
I feel tenderness and regret. Irony, also, and almost a sense of relief.
