Sonnet 73 - William Shakespeare by

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:10:18 UTC

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:10:20 UTC

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:10:24 UTC

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:10:31 UTC

Stanza 1

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:11:40 UTC

Around this time of year where the leaves turn yellow and the cold lingers the birds have forsaken this place that there is no singing to be heard.

Stanza 2

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:11:45 UTC

You see in me the night of such day, after the sun has set in the west, when night takes away day, death's second self, that seals up the rest.

Stanza 3

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:11:51 UTC

Within my youth I was a burning ember, now I lie on my deathbed who was once a flame who fed the burning ember.

Stanza 4

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:12:10 UTC

This you sense, that makes your love more determined

causing you to love something that you must give up before long.

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:29:46 UTC

Commentary

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:53:37 UTC

the speaker’s anxieties regarding what he perceives to be his advanced age, and develops the theme through a sequence of metaphors each implying something different. The first quatrain, which employs the metaphor of the winter day, emphasizes the harshness and emptiness of old age, with its boughs shaking against the cold and its “bare ruined choirs” bereft of birdsong. But in each of these quatrains, with each of these metaphors, the speaker fails to confront the full scope of his problem: both the metaphor of winter and the metaphor of twilight imply cycles, and impose cyclical motions upon the objects of their metaphors, whereas old age is final. Winter follows spring, but spring will follow winter just as surely; and after the twilight fades, dawn will come again. In human life, however, the fading of warmth and light is not cyclical; youth will not come again for the speaker. In the third quatrain, he must resign himself to this fact. The image of the fire consumed by the ashes of its youth is significant both for its brilliant disposition of the past—the ashes of which eventually snuff out the fire, “consumed by that which it was nourished by" - when the fire is extinguished, it can never be lit again

Responce

virk1noff — 2015-10-16 15:55:37 UTC