Sonnet 73

William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73," which begins, "That time of year thou may'st in me behold," addresses the theme of love in light of human mortality. The poem is constructed as a typical English...

I have long disagreed with the common interpretation of this sonnet. Although I agree that the images of night, bare trees, etc., are symbols for the passing of time, and that "Death's second self"...

The speaker in sonnet 73 compares himself to yellowed leaves, ruined church buildings, twilight, sunset and a last glowing ember lying in the ashes of a fire that is almost burned out. All of these...

If you have read any of Shakespeare's other sonnets—or indeed, any sonnet in the traditional form—you may recognize this meter. It is iambic pentameter, a meter in which each line contains five...

What is especially striking about Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is that each quatrain contains a metaphor within a metaphor. For example, in the first quatrain he compares his time of life to early...

The first rule in trying to figure out what a line of poetry means is to find the end punctuation (in this case, a "period") and back up to the beginning of the thought. Line 12 can't make any...

Shakespeare's sonnet 73 is a formally typical example of a Shakespearean sonnet, despite being a poetically outstanding one. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg, the usual four quatrains followed...

Like many of his other sonnets, Sonnet 73 focuses on Shakespeare's anxieties concerning old age. In the poem, the speaker evokes seasonal imagery to reflect the passage of time by using several...

This is perhaps Shakespeare's best sonnet, technically speaking. What makes it unique is the display of metaphors. Each of the three stanzas contains two metaphors. The first in each case is a...

Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 suggests that through aging and death, we can and should appreciate what we have. The basic idea is that because we will lose our lives and our loved ones, and the seasons...

Throughout Sonnet 73 the speaker, presumably Shakespeare himself, is describing himself, his age and appearance, in terms of metaphors. In lines 1-4 he compares himself to the time of year when the...

That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | be hold When yel | low leaves, | or none, | or few, | do hang Up on | those boughs | which shake | a gainst | the cold, Bare ru | ined, choirs | where...

To analyze diction in a poem means to look closely at the poet's choice of words and consider the connotations of those particular words and the effects they have on the meaning of the poem as a...

Just to make it clear, this line actually comes from "Sonnet 73." This particular poem is a rumination on old age, and largely consists of a collection of appropriate metaphors. So for instance,...

Dimidium facti qui coepit habet.(He who makes a start has half the work done.) Horace The best way to start a letter is to show the date and then...

The main argument in William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" is that passion grows with age. The speaker describes this passion as a "glowing . . . fire." The speaker tell his beloved that passion...

There are many thesis statements one could construct about "Sonnet 73." A thesis should argue something specific about the poem, such as what its message is or how it creates its message. It should...

The speaker of Shakespeare's sonnet 73 seems to be the same speaker as the surrounding sonnets, and the addressee, too, is generally supposed to be the same. The sequence of sonnets to 1-126...

“Sonnet 73” by William Shakespeare centers on a metaphor about death. A conceit uses an extended metaphor to compare two things, pointing out the similarities between them and establishing a link....

There are two main themes in Sonnet 73. Both are universal ideas, but the first—that of the mortality the speaker is aware of in himself as he ages—is something all of us can appreciate and relate...

The two forms of a two-beat foot in scansion are Iamb and Trochee. The iamb is the most common (with the emphasis or stress on the second syllable), the foot of the iambic pentameter line that...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is a poem about love, like many of the sonnets. In this sonnet, Shakespeare is discussing the season, autumn, and how he has grown old. In order to interpret the...

In this sonnet, the speaker describes himself as aging and getting closer to death. In the first four lines, he suggests that his beloved might look at him and think of the late fall, when only a...

In the first quatrain of Sonnet 73, Shakespeare compares old age to late autumn. As we will shortly discover, this is a singularly apt comparison: for this is a time of year when there are few...

The image of twilight "after sunset fadeth in the west" is the second of three vivid metaphors for old age, each of which occupies one quatrain of the sonnet. The first of these uses trees in...

1. In lines 2 and 3 of “Sonnet 73,” the speaker mentions that his lover will notice his “yellow leaves, or none, or few” that “shake against the cold.” Based on these lines, the reader can infer...

In Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, the speaker in the poem talks about his fading life. Seasons are often used as symbols for times of life: Spring for youth, summer for life’s prime, autumn for age, and...

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" is primarily about aging and even the approach of death as well as their ability to make love grow. The speaker compares himself to autumn "in me behold / When yellow...

The word order? An interesting question. First, the more obvious observations: he arranges the lines so they rhyme, and what's more, rhyme smoothly. The word order is clearly conscious, but does...

The first four lines compare the end of the narrator's life to the last days of autumn: That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs...

Sure, no problem. At its briefest, this sonnet says, "You may be seeing me aging, and I hope/wish that you'll love me more because you know we only have a short time together." To expand on that a...

In the first quatrain, Shakespeare compares life to the seasons, particularly growing older to fall/winter. In the second the metaphor changes to comparing one's life to the course of a single...