Ian Hedstrom
Ms. Peifer
10 IB hour 5
2/23/09 Hedstrom 1
Sonnet 73 Commentary
Sonnet 73 is the story of the author slowly realizing he is growing older and that he does not have a whole lot of time left to live. Shakespeare uses a series of metaphors to describe his purpose, which is the nature of his old age. He develops the theme through a series of metaphors, each implying something different. The first quatrain has the metaphor of a winter day and emphasizes the harshness and emptiness of old age “upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” (3-4). This gives the sonnet a cold empty feeling. In the second quatrain the metaphor changes to the twilight and emphasizes the gradual fading of the light of youth “which by and by black night doth take away” (7). This shows that the light is being overcome by darkness and implies that his youth is being taken over by old age. With these metaphors in each quatrain he fails to face his issue. The metaphors of winter and twilight imply that they will happen again, but age does not start over, it is final. In the third quatrain he must realize this fact. The image of the fire consumed by the ashes of its youth is significant for its vivid imagery of the past and for the fact that when a fire goes out it can not be lit again.
The couplet renews the author’s plea for the young mans love, wanting him to “love that well which thou must leave ere long” (14). The couplet could not have been spoken after the first and second quatrains. After the third quatrain the author makes clear the nature of his “leaving ere long” (14) and the couplet is possible. He realizes love and death are intimately connected and that is true knowledge.
