In "Sonnet 73", the speaker uses a series of metaphors to characterize what he perceives to be the nature of his old age. This poem is not simply a procession of interchangeable metaphors; it is the story of the speaker slowly coming to grips with the finality of his age and his impermanence in time.
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
…show more content…
Once more, the poet anticipates his own death when he composes this poem. But in each of these quatrains, the speaker fails to confront the full scope of his problem: winter, in fact, is a part of a cycle; winter follows spring, and spring returns after winter just as surely. Age, on the other hand, is not a cycle; youth will not come again for the speaker. In the third quatrain, the speaker resigns himself to this fact.]
Finally, the speaker compares himself to the glowing remnants of a fire, which lies on the ashes of the logs that once enabled it to burn. In contrast, the love between the speaker and his beloved remains strong even though he may not live long. Here the speaker employs another kind of figurative language, the paradox, to emphasize that their love, unlike the fire, is unalterable and everlasting.
The couplet of this sonnet renews the speaker's wish for their love, urging her to "love well" which he must soon leave. But after the third quatrain, the speaker applauds his lover for having courage and adoration to remain faithful to him. The rhyme couplet suggests the unconditional love between the speaker and his
Part of being human is understanding we are not immortal, and will eventually cease to function. For some, this acknowledgement is a daunting reality swept into the back of the mind to be forgotten. While for others it is an inspiring awareness that encourages us to live every day to its fullest potential. Both of these feelings about death can be seen in John Donne’s, “Holy Sonnet 10” and Philip Larkin’s, “Aubade”. Together they challenge the reader to accept their fate and make the most of the time we have on Earth. Both authors employ various poetic devices and prosody to give an understanding of death.
The ending couplet sums up the main idea of the sonnet. It continues with the image of eternity and the memory of the addressee. When Shakespeare writes “So, till the judgment that yourself arise / you live in this and dwell in lovers eyes” there is still an emphasis on the word of the poem itself.
In poem C, a poem in sonnet form, the poets use of syntax and diction allows the relationship between words and feeling to become apparent to the reader. The speaker is encouraging the reader to feel the passage of time, but with the realisation that in eventuality we will all die. The poem is an extended metaphor for aging and death but is also allegorical by using the literal diction and syntax to describe the sea whilst having the parallel meaning for life and death. The relationship between these two meanings is arbitrary. In the opening line of the first quatrain, the poet uses a Homeric simile “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore/ So do our minutes hasten to their end” This is also an example of tenor vehicle ground, each part of the language is used to encourage the readers to feel something. The language used seems fluid which adds to the imagery of the sea and fluidity of the waves coming onto shore. “Pebbled shore”, and “hastening to their end”, are used to convey the symbolism of waves covering the pebbles on the shore, as a metaphor for our lives heading towards eventual death. You encounter personification with words such as “toil” and “contend” this emphasises the effort of the waves much like the implication for human life posing the question why rush when only death is awaiting you. In the second quatrain, the diction is metonymy where each phase of life can be
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold" is a sonnet that examines the fears and anxieties that surround growing old and dying -- a topic that resonates within us all. Shakespeare's use of metaphor to illustrate decay and passing are striking, and sets a somber tone throughout. He uses the season of Fall, the coming of night, and the burning out of a flame as metaphors for old age and death, and then uses the last two lines to suggest that we should love and cherish life while we can.
William Shakespeare was a very well known writer in the British literary community and his pieces are still read and enjoyed today. Shakespeare is also known to have written a collection of poems which are sonnets. This essay will consist of a close reading to William Shakespeare’s sonnet 73 which deals with the theme of life, death and aging. The sonnet constructs a complex idea that the themes of life and death can be connected together.
I will be writing about “Sonnet 130” that was written in 1609 by William Shakespeare. The theme of this sonnet is romance, but it isn’t the conventional love poem were you praise your mistress and point out to the readers all the ways in which she is perfect and the best. In this sonnet we could see that beauty isn’t a rush when you talk about love and how does Shakespeare compares her mistress appearance to things which she isn’t, this means her mistress isn’t the like a “Super model” however he loves her imperfections because those are the ones which make her a human.
Shakespearean sonnet divides the 14 total lines by 3 groups of 4 (the quatrains), and the last 2 being a couplet.
At first glance, it’s dark and callous, while showing the speaker apparently in contradictory minds about his lover. The recipient of this prickly sonnet was not the archetypal blond, pale and rosy-cheeked beauty that was so fashionable in court, but rather the opposite. Not to say, the former is not beauty, but by today’s prism opinions she’s likely on par amongst the vast multihued acceptance.
Gloomy, dejected, depressed: These are the emotional elements that William Shakespeare implemented into the speaker of Sonnet 73. An understanding that time doesn’t last forever and we all will age with the current of time. Thus he has accepted his fate, but wants us the readers to feel what he feels and see what he sees.
The learner profile that the author used in this poem was risk taker and thinker, because risk taker he said a lot of stuff about he’s love and thinker because he think about new word to put in he’s
Love is a central theme in William Shakespeare's sonnets, yet the means by which love is expressed and the form in which it takes differs across various sonnets. In sonnet 116, Shakespeare lavishes the reader with beautiful imagery of love in its most idyllic form. On the other hand, in sonnet 130, he adopts a more realistic approach to love as it is experienced by everyday people. In both cases, the poet is able to artfully convey the theme of love in its various forms such that the reader is able to easily recognize and identify with it.
In Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Diary, one of his notable characters Grace says these words right before she perishes in a hotel fire, “We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” (Palahniuk, 2003). There is an inevitable human desire to want to be remembered even after death. It is the need to create a legacy that will last beyond the individual lifespan. Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 75 and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 demonstrate this ambition. The two works were written a century apart. However, despite their differences, it is evident that their intentions are identical. By using the raging patterns of nature to illustrate the inevitabilities of death, the sonnets provide the ways art can transcend the unavoidable. As well, the language and structure of the writing is selectively used to bring light to the true focus of the poems. In all, through their use of language, structure and metaphors, Spenser and Shakespeare both highlight their writing capabilities and allow us to question the authenticity of their poems.
Part of being human is the understanding we are not immortal, and will eventually cease to function. For some, this acknowledgement is a daunting reality swept into the back of the mind to be forgotten. While for others it is an inspiring awareness that encourages us to live every day to its fullest potential. Both of these feelings about death are seen in John Donne’s, “Holy Sonnet 10” and Philip Larkin’s, “Aubade”. Together they challenge the reader to accept their fate and make the most of the time we have on Earth. Both authors employ various poetic devices and prosody to give an understanding of death.
In perhaps the most famous and well-known of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, the speaker opens this poem with a question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (1). It is a typical sonnet in that it has a rhyme scheme, is 14 lines long, and in iambic pentameter. On the surface, this is simply a praise of the beauty of the speaker’s beloved; he is not like the unpleasant heat of the summer, he is agreeable and eternal. This subject shall never fade nor stray like summer or any other love which sometime decline.
In the poem by W. Shakespeare mentions that his emotions about getting older by using nature as metaphor. The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter with a regular rhyme scheme, regular meter, and the structure consists of three quatrains and one couplet at the end. Both rhymes and images change throughout the poem. The form of the poem is related to the subject matter because in Shakespearean sonnet each 4 lines have different patterns, and these patterns have different images, in the last 2 lines, he approaches from a different perspective.