Some literary critics say that Chinese literati, especially poets, are mostly disposed to be decadent, which accounts for predominance of Chinese works singing the praises of autumn. Well, the same is true of foreign poets, isn't it? I haven't read much of foreign poetry and prose, nor do I want to enumerate autumn-related poems and essays in foreign literature. But, if you browse through collected works of English, German, French or Italian poets, or various countries' anthologies of poetry or prose, you can always comes across a great many literary pieces eulogizing or lamenting autumn. Long pastoral poems or songs about the four seasons by renowned poets are mostly distinguished by beautiful moving lines on autumn. All that goes to show that all live creatures and sensitive humans alike are prone to the feeling of depth, remoteness, severity and bleakness. Not only poets, even convicts in prison, I suppose, have deep sentiments in autumn in spite of themselves. Autumn treats all humans alike, regardless of nationality, race or class. However, judging from Chinese idiom qiushi (autumn scholar, meaning and aged scholar grieving over frustrations in his life) and frequent selection in textbooks of Ouyang Xiu's On the Autumn Sough and Su Dongpo's On the Red Cliff, Chinese men of letters seem to be particularly autumn-minded. But, to know the real flavour of autumn, especially China's autumn, one has to visit the North.
adj. 独一无二的,独特的,稀罕的