Chapter IV Summary

In Chapter IV, WG Sebald's journey continues as he makes his way to the town of Southwold, there to rest footsore on a bench in a part of the town called Gunhill. The twilight gloom makes him wonder what it must have looked like on a similar day some four hundred years previously in 1672 when the Dutch fleet appeared off of the coastline as the Dutch attacked the naval forces of Britain. Having already seen the famous painting depicting the sight, the author thinks that the masterpiece must be a poor comparison to the real thing, where nothing much could have been seen for the fogs of war, nor the real human terror felt as it was in real life. This titanic battle, exemplified by the warships of the Dutch and the British the author imagines to be the herald of...