   #copyright

Autumn

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Climate and the Weather

                                                          CAPTION: Seasons

                                                                  Tropical

                                                                Dry season

                                                                Wet season

                                                          CAPTION: Seasons

                                                                 Temperate

                                                                    Spring

                                                                    Summer

                                                                    Autumn

                                                                    Winter

   Autumn (also known as fall in North American English) is one of the
   four temperate seasons, the transition from summer into winter. In the
   temperate zones, autumn is the season during which most crops are
   harvested, and deciduous trees lose their leaves. It is also the season
   where days rapidly get shorter and cooler, the nights rapidly get
   longer, and of gradually increasing precipitation in some parts of the
   world.
   Ginkgos along Harlem Avenue in Riverside, Illinois Enlarge
   Ginkgos along Harlem Avenue in Riverside, Illinois

Definitions

   Astronomically, some Western countries consider autumn to begin with
   the September equinox (around September 23) in the Northern hemisphere,
   and the March equinox ( March 21) in the southern hemisphere, ending
   with the December solstice (around December 21) in the Northern
   hemisphere and the June solstice ( June 21) in the Southern hemisphere.
   Such conventions are by no means universal, however. An exception to
   these definitions is found in the Irish Calendar which still follows
   the Celtic cycle, where Autumn is counted as the whole months of
   August, September and October. In Chinese astronomy, the autumnal
   equinox marks the middle of autumn, which is deemed to have begun
   around the time of Liqiu (around August 7).

   On the other hand, meteorologists count the entire months of March,
   April and May in the Southern hemisphere, and September, October and
   November in the Northern hemisphere as autumn.

   Albeit the days begin to shorten after the summer solstice, it is
   usually in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern
   Hemisphere) when twilight becomes noticeably shorter and the change
   more abrupt in comparison with the more lingering ones of summer.
   Autumn colours at Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire, England.
   Enlarge
   Autumn colours at Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire, England.

   Autumn is often defined as the start of the school year, since they
   usually begin in early September or early March. Either definition, as
   with those of the seasons generally, is somewhat flawed because it
   assumes that the seasons are all of the same length, and begin and end
   at the same time throughout the temperate zone of each hemisphere.

Historic usage and recognition

   Many ancient civilizations computed the years by autumns, while the
   Anglo-Saxons did so by winters. Tacitus tells us that the ancient
   Germans were acquainted with all the other seasons of the year, but had
   no notion of Autumn - though this is likely to be wrong, especially as
   a blanket statement (Tacitus wrote about Germanic tribes without
   firsthand knowledge). Linwood observed of the beginning of the several
   seasons of the year, that

          "Dat Clemens Hyemem, dat Petrus Ver Cathedratus;
          Aestuat Urbanus, Autumnat Bartholomaeus." .

   In alchemy, Autumn is the time or season when the operation of the
   Philosopher's stone is brought to maturity and perfection .

Autumn in popular culture

Association with harvest

   Personification of Autumn (Currier & Ives Lithograph, 1871).
   Enlarge
   Personification of Autumn (Currier & Ives Lithograph, 1871).
   John Everett Millais, "Autumn Leaves"
   Enlarge
   John Everett Millais, "Autumn Leaves"

   Autumn's association with the transition from warm to cold weather, and
   its related status as the season of the primary harvest, has dominated
   its themes and popular images. In Western cultures, personifications of
   Autumn are usually pretty, well-fed females adorned with fruits,
   vegetables and grains that ripen at this time. Most ancient cultures
   featured autumnal celebrations of the harvest, often the most important
   on their calendars. Still extant echoes of these celebrations are found
   in the late-Autumn Thanksgiving holiday of the United States, the
   Jewish Sukkot holiday with its roots as a full moon harvest festival of
   "tabernacles" (huts wherein the harvest was processed and which later
   gained religious significance), the many North American Indian
   festivals tied to harvest of autumnally ripe foods gathered in the
   wild, the Chinese Mid-Autumn or Moon festival, and many others. The
   predominant mood of these autumnal celebrations is a gladness for the
   fruits of the earth mixed with a certain melancholy linked to the
   imminence of harsh weather. Remembrance of ancestors is also a common
   theme.

   This view is presented in Keats' poem ' To Autumn' where he describes
   the season as a time of delightful growth, a seemingly endless time of
   'fruitfulness'.

Associations with melancholy

   Autumn in poetry has often been associated with melancholy. The
   possibilities of summer are gone, and the chill of winter is on the
   horizon. Thoughts and skies turn to grey. Rainer Maria Rilke, a famous
   german-language poet, has expressed such sentiments in one of his most
   famous poems, Herbsttag (Autumn Day), which reads in part:

          Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
          Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
          wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
          und wird in den Alleen hin und her
          unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

   This translates roughly (there is no official translation) to:

          Who now has no house, will not build one (anymore).
          Who now is alone, will remain so for long,
          will wake, and read, and write long letters
          and back and forth on the boulevards
          will restlessly wander, while the leaves blow.

   We might also think of Yeats' poem ' The Wild Swans at Coole' where the
   maturing season that the poet observes symbolically represents the
   poet's ageing self. Like the natural world that he observes he too has
   reached his prime and now must look forward to the inevitability of old
   age and death. Paul Verlaine's "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song") is
   likewise characterized by strong, painful feelings of sorrow.

Other associations

   Especially in the US, Autumn is also associated with the Halloween
   season, and with it a widespread marketing campaign that promotes it.
   The television, film, book, costume, home decoration, and confectionery
   industries use this time of year to promote products closely associated
   with such holiday, with promotions going from early September to 31
   October, since their themes rapidly lose strength once the holiday
   ends.

   For the American film industry, the autumn season, which begins on the
   weekend following Labor Day and ends in early November, is the shortest
   and least profitable season of the movies. It follows the season of
   summer " blockbusters" and precedes the crowded end-of-year schedule of
   movies intended for award consideration.

Autumn and tourism

   Brilliant orange of sunlight autumn trees
   Enlarge
   Brilliant orange of sunlight autumn trees
   Fiery red fall leaves
   Enlarge
   Fiery red fall leaves

   Although autumn coloration occurs wherever deciduous trees are found,
   colored autumn foliage is particularly noted in three regions of the
   world: most of Canada and the United States; a small area of central
   South America; and Eastern Asia, including China, Korea, and Japan.

   Eastern Canada and the New England region of the United States are
   famous for the brilliance of their "fall foliage," and a seasonal
   tourist industry has grown up around the few weeks in autumn when the
   leaves are at their peak. Some television and web-based weather
   forecasts even report on the status of the fall foliage throughout the
   season as a service to tourists. Fall foliage tourists are often
   referred to as " leaf peepers".

Autumn versus Fall

   Fall is an alternative English word for the season of Autumn. In use
   now only in North American English, the word traces its origins to old
   Germanic languages. The exact derivation is unclear, the Old English
   fiæll or feallan and the Old Norse fall all being possible candidates.
   However, these words all have the meaning "to fall from a height" and
   are clearly derived either from a common root or from each other. The
   term only came to denote the season in the 16th century, a contraction
   of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the
   year".

   Autumn comes from the Old French automne, and ultimately from the Latin
   autumnus. There are rare examples of its use as early as the 14th
   century, but it became common only in the 16th, around the same time as
   Fall, when the two words appear to have been used interchangebly.

   During the 17th century immigration to the English colonies in North
   America was at its peak and the new settlers took their language with
   them. While the term Fall gradually obsolesced in Britain, it became
   the preferred term in North America, at least in conversation.

   Before the 16th century Harvest was the term usually used to refer to
   the season. However as more people gradually moved from working the
   land to living in towns (especially those who could read and write, the
   only people whose use of language we now know), the word became to
   refer to the actual activity of reaping, rather than the time of year,
   and Fall and Autumn began to replace it.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
