Late Style and its Discontents

''Late style'' is a critical term routinely deployed to characterise the work of selected authors, composers, and creative artists as they enter their last phase of production—often, but not only, in old age. Taken at face value, this terminology merely points to a chronological division in the artist''s oeuvre, ''late'' being the antonym of ''early'' or the third term in the triad ''early-middle-...