Essay on Metaphors for Death in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73

as a part of the season which is known as spring; it can be assumed he means all life and all things are subject to the ravages of time. Mortality is all around us and with it the stages of all life and time pass. In terms of the opening lines, thought, youth and beauty are fleeting indeed.

Summary This sonnet attempts to explain the nature of time as it passes, and as it acts on human life. In the first quatrain, the

In the first quatrain, the speaker contrasts his age is like a "time of year,": late autumn, when the "yellow leaves" have almost completely fallen from the trees and the boughs "shake against the cold." Those metaphors clearly indicate that winter, which usually symbolizes the loneliness and desolation, is coming. Here the reader would easily observe the similarity between the season and the speaker's age. Since winter is usually

In Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73", the words "in me" are repeated three times throughout the poem and aid in establishing the poem's meaning. The sonnet is essentially about someone who is getting older and nearing death, thus causing the reader, or who the poem was intended for, to love love him "more strong" (13-14), since he will soon be gone. In order to exemplify the aging process, Shakespeare parallels it to the fall season, twilight, sleep, and a dying fire. Thus, the words "in me" are significant because the poem begins by explaining the aging process by announcing that "thou may'st in me behold when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the go cold" (1-3). This description of sparse yellow leaves hanging or falling from a tree represent the fall season, which Shakespeare parallels to the "fall season" of life, that is, when

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (“Sonnet 18”) is one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems. It is the model English, or Shakespearean sonnet: it contains three quatrains and a finishing couplet.. The poem follows the traditional English sonnet form by having the octet introduce an idea or set up the poem, and the sestet beginning with a volta, or turn in perspective. In the octet of Sonnet 18, Shakespeare poses the question “Shall I compare the to a summer’s day” and basically begins to describe all the bad qualities of summer. He says it’s too windy, too short, too hot, and too cloudy. Eventually fall is going to come and take away all the beauty because of the changes nature brings. In the sestet, however, his tone changes as he begins to talk about his beloved’s “eternal summer” (Shakespeare line 9). This is where the turn takes place in the poem. Unlike the summer, their beauty will never fade. Not even death can stop their beauty for, according to Shakespeare, as long as people can read this poem, his lover’s beauty will continue to live. Shakespeare believes that his art is more powerful than any season and that in it beauty can be permanent.

Millay and Shakespeare enforce into the audience the negative effects time has on a person after a while in “Sonnet 73,” and “Sonnet II,” through the use of a dreary tone. The speaker in,”Sonnet 73,” states that youth eventually ends up on,”The death-bed whereon it must expire”(11). The use of phrases such as ”death-bed,” to enforce the idea of youth ending add on to the dreary tone as “death-bed” has to do with something dying, which in this case is the youth of a person. The use of words such as “death-bed,” not only add to the dreary tone, but they also further present how terrible it is to leave one’s youth, which is an event that every person must face as time goes on, and age increases. Another example adding to the dreary tone is when the speaker discusses the,”Bare ruined choirs”(4). The use of the words “Bare,” and “Ruined” add on to the dreary tone because something that is “Bare,” means nothing is there, no real life exists in that place. The use of “Bare,” and “Ruined” also engrave the idea of how bad leaving one’s youth is by the speaker comparing that to how he feels as

       The theme, in Sonnet 73, is the poet's aging. Each quatrain develops an image of lateness, of approaching extinction - of a season, of a day, and of a fire, but they also apply to a life (Abrams et al. 867). The poet compares his age to three images through the quatrains: autumn, the dying of the year (first quatrain); the dying of the fire (third quatrain). The first line draws a picture of himself, "in me," and in a certain time, "That time of year," of his life (surely, he is old now). We can see that the

Frost described the literal meaning of the sonnet through imagery. Through Frost’s description the audience was able to know the sonnet’s setting was in a windy environment near trees. Frost illustrated the setting through his description, “...tempest with a crash of wood.” Through the description of the weather and surroundings of the narrator, the audience was able to know there was a wind storm and a fallen tree in the path. Correspondly, Frost described the effect of the fallen tree. Frost illustrated the effect of the collapse of the tree, “ [The tree] throws down in front of us...” The collapse of the tree established the physical problem within the sonnet. The physical problem within the sonnet was the tree blockaded the path of the travelers. After Frost described the physical struggle within the sonnet, he described the outcome. Frost stated, “Steer straight off [the path]...” The travelers took a different path to overcome the fallen tree. Overall the literal meaning of the sonnet was described as a group of travelers built a new path, after a tree fell and blocked their trail. The literal meaning of Frost’s sonnet was described through his use of imagery.

This serves as a metaphor for life being temporary and death being permanent. That is why the time that someone has to live should not be wasted, because time is temporary, and when they die, it’s going to be forever, and there will be no second choices. However, in the stanza about the wild men, it is spoken that they “caught and sang the sun in flight” (10). Seeing that the sun is also associated with light, and light represents life in the poem, when they “caught” the sun in flight, they took advantage of the fact that the sun was there. This symbolizes that the wild men used the time they had to live their lives and to do what they wanted, not worrying about anything

“That Time of Year” by William Shakespeare illustrates the coming of death for an elderly man, and the love in his relationship strengthening. Throughout the sonnet, the themes of love, The speaker, a man who is growing old, uses a different metaphor in each of the quatrains to describe to his lover how old age dawns upon us. By using a separate metaphor in each quatrain, Shakespeare uses English form to his advantage. The metaphors that the speaker uses all relate to nature, which unifies them together and relates them to the theme and purpose. In the couplet, we find that although the man is dying and growing weaker, the love between him and his lover seems to grow stronger.

It shows that the day has come to an end. This is the last line of the sonnet and it has great significance. It symbolises the end of the sonnet and also the death of a

The author also uses one period towards the end of the poem to signify the ending of one thought or action and begin another. This sonnet also has a changing meter which shows the reader which lines are significant by making them stand

Shakespeare’s sonnet 60 expresses the inevitable end that comes with time and uses this dark truth to express his hopefulness that his poetry will carry his beloved’s beauty and worth into the future in some way so that it may never die. This love poem is, as all sonnets are, fourteen lines. Three quatrains form these fourteen lines, and each quatrain consists of two lines. Furthermore, the last two lines that follow these quatrains are known as the couplet. This sonnet has the rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, as most Shakespearean sonnets follow. In each of the three quatrains, Shakespeare discusses a different idea. In this particular sonnet, the idea is how time continues to pass on, causing everything to die. The couplet connects these ideas to one central theme, this theme being Shakespeare’s hope for the beauty of his beloved’s immortality through his poetry’s continuation into future times.

     The sonnet, being one of the most traditional and recognized forms of poetry, has been used and altered in many time periods by writers to convey different messages to the audience. The strict constraints of the form have often been used to parallel the subject in the poem. Many times, the first three quatrains introduce the subject and build on one another, showing progression in the poem. The final couplet brings closure to the poem by bringing the main ideas together. On other occasions, the couplet makes a statement of irony or refutes the main idea with a counter statement. It leaves the reader with a last impression of what the author is trying to say.

In Sonnet 7 (“Lo, in the orient, when the gracious light..”), one out of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet, William Shakespeare, focuses on the burden of beauty and how human life can be compared to the passage of the sun rising and setting. Throughout the whole poem, the advice is given to the young man, to follow the sun and its direction. This sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, consists of three quatrains and ends with a couplet while following the rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The poet 's way of using poetic and literary devices such as rhythm, alliteration, and caesuras strengthens the poem’s argument that the sun and man must coexist to live on and that the only way for the youth to ensure their