What is the theme of Shakespeare's 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 sonnet, consisting of three quatrains followed by a couplet, with a major structural turn or reversal between the third quatrain and the couplet. The poem is written in the first person and addressed to a beloved referred to as "you"; the only real detail we learn of the beloved is that the beloved is younger than the narrator.

The three quatrains are an extended meditation on aging. The first quatrain compares human aging to the season of autumn. The second quatrain compares aging and death to the fading of daylight into night. The third quatrain compares aging to a fire burning down from flames to embers. 

The twist in the couplet is that the narrator argues that the fleeting nature of human life strengthens rather than weakens the addressee's love for the narrator:

   This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The theme of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is the importance of the friend of the poet's loving him more strongly because of the temporal state of life.  Calling attention to his aging in order to convince his lover of the urgency of full affection, the poet uses images such as "yellow leaves" and "twilight."  And, with the prefix twi-- which means "half," the poet suggests that his life is nearing its completion.  As the sonnet develops, the suggestion of death comes in the second quatrain:

As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

Further, the ending couplet summarizes the purpose of this sonnet; that is, the poet pleas with his lover to love him more strongly since there is so little time left to him.

In summary, the theme of the importance of the lover devoting attention to the poet is expressed in three metaphors:

1. the yellowing leaves
2. the day fading in the west after sunset and black night coming
3. the glowing of the fire of life being consumed by ashes

What poetic elements, imagery, symbolism, and central theme does Shakespeare use in Sonnet 73?

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 metaphor for the speaker's age, and the second is a metaphor for that metaphor.

In the first stanza the poet, presumably Shakespeare himself, compares his aging condition to 

That time of year...

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

And then he compares those barren boughs to

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

The sound of singing birds is simulated by the "S" sounds in "sweet" and "sang." It should be noted that the concept of the boughs shaking because of the cold is a poetic conceit. The boughs cannot not feel the cold but are shaking because of the wind. What is interesting is that they look as if they are shaking because of the cold. And they look as if they are shaking because of the cold because they are nearly naked. Shakespeare makes the preceding line move slowly, breaking it up with commas

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

so that the words "shake against the cold" will convey that image more effectively by contrast.

In the second stanza he returns to his aged appearance and mood. He compares them with 

The twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;

And then he compares the ensuing "black night" to

Death's second self that seals up all in rest.

The poet is equating death and night. It is a thought which must be familiar to his reader. Many of Shakespeare's metaphors and similes are characteristically familiar, homely, commonplace, unpretentious, and simple. That is one of Shakespeare's finest attributes as a poet. In Macbeth he has his protagonist compare sleep to "the death of each day's life." Everybody can understand that metaphor. Going to sleep is like dying, and waking up is like being reborn. In Hamlet he has the Prince compare humanity to a neglected garden:

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. 

Everybody has seen such a garden by an abandoned house. The grass gets long and choked with weeds. This is "rank." Huge, ugly weeds spring up here and there. They are "gross." The rank vegetation represents most of the people in the world. The gross weeds represent people like Claudius and Polonius.

In the third stanza, Shakespeare compares his time of life to

the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

And then he compares those ashes to a death-bed.

The central theme of Sonnet 73 is summarized in the final couplet.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

Shakespeare is expressing his appreciation for the fact that his paramour still continues to love him in spite of the fact that he is growing old. No doubt the person addressed in the poem continues to love him more or less the same as always. But the love seems "more strong" and more precious to the poet because he knows he is growing older, losing his vitality and whatever good looks he once possessed. 

In some of Shakespeare's sonnets he uses only one striking metaphor or simile, which stands out because of its placement and because it stands alone. For example, in Sonnet 29, which begins with 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

he breaks into his morbid reflections with these lines containing a commonplace but dazzling simile:

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

The lark begins to take flight in one line and soars all the way up to heaven in the next. The lark's singing is simulated by all the "S" sounds in "arising," "sullen," "sings," "hymns," and "heaven's."

But in Sonnet 73, Shakespeare fills his poem with metaphors as if to offer a tiny sample of his unfathomed and inexhaustible creative prowess.

What is the theme of Sonnet 73?

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 winter for death. Notice the autumnal images with “yellow leaves” and the empty tree boughs where “few” or “none” of these leaves hang. The boughs themselves “shake against the cold,” which signifies the approaching winter.

Other words symbolizing old age, even death, are “twilight,” “sunset fadeth,” and “dark night.”  The speaker of the poem shows that he is aged and perhaps even close to death. He addresses a loved one and shows through fire images that his fire will soon go out:

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

The fuel of youth has already burned in the speaker’s fire: youth is now ashes. A fire, nourished by wood, will go out when the wood is burned to ashes--in this sense, the fire itself is consumed in the ashes of what once nourished it.

Finally, the speaker notes that his loved one's love is even stronger because the loved one knows the speaker will be gone soon.

What is the theme of Sonnet 73, and is it universal or specific?

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 to as we age. The second, meanwhile, addressed in the closing couplet, is concerned with the love of a younger person for an older one—a concept which, while certainly not parochial or limited in scope, may not be something everyone can understand.

The speaker observes that he himself is in the autumn of his lifetime. He uses natural imagery to suggest that he, at this point in his life, resembles a tree bedecked with autumn leaves, standing in a "twilight" which will give way soon enough to the darkness of death. His youth lies now in "ashes," and this must surely be evident to anyone who sees the speaker. The speaker's message in the poem to his beloved, then, is that anyone who can still love someone whose youth is far behind them must love very strongly indeed. That kind of love is "more strong" because it is not a fickle love compelled by youth and because it knows that the beloved must soon depart.

The theme of Sonnet 73 is mortality leading to death; there even seems to be a bit of sadness as the speaker is moving closer to death and warns the listener that he/she will perhaps love/miss them more as they will leave forever.  I agree with Greg that the theme ultimately comes across as a universal one, as it is basically one of mortality.  Brenda

What an interesting question! I say this because the poem's theme is mortality, and specifically how all who love, no matter how intensely, must die. The idea that this could be anything but universal never occurred to me. That might make me parochial, but I would say Shakespeare is here addressing a sad but universal truth.

Greg

What is the meaning of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73?

Shakespeare's first 126 sonnets constitute a cycle with  controlling themes that unite sections of the sonnets.  He begins his sonnets with the speaker's "unqualified love for a young man whose youthful beauty is praised."  He further talks about the destructive effects of time upon "youthful beauty."  The sonnets then imply that the poet's beloved has either left him for another or that "the poet's affection has not been returned by the young man."  At this point, sonnet 73 begins.  For example, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold," implies the autumnal stage of life symbolically represented that the poet believes his beloved sees him as growing old as indicated in the following lines:

         In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
         As after sunset fadeth in the west;
         Which by and by black night doth take away,
         Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

The poet then suggests that rather than the young man being repulsed by the decay of his old age, his lover should embrace him more fully and urgently as indicated in the following lines:

        This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
        To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

What is a brief explanation of Sonnet 73?

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 little bit, look at the first four lines; he's talking about winter, or a time when things die off and few leaves grow. The next four start with talking about light fading at the end of the day. The next four make it more explicitly about the speaker aging, and the last two wrap it up with "This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong": you see me aging, and this makes you love more intensely.

For a bit longer explanation (but still a pretty brief one), I suggest the enote explanation of this poem.