Sonnet 73
That time of
year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those
boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined
choirs, where
late the sweet birds sang .
In me thou seest 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.
In me thou seest
the glowing of such fire
That on the
ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed
whereon it must expire
Consumed with
that which it was nourished by.
This thou
perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
In this sonnet Shakespeare continues his
meditation on aging and approaching death. However, one may not be misled and
think of Shakespeare as a doddering old man. It is my belief that there is more
than a touch of the hyperbole in his agonizing preoccupation with his age.
In the first 12 lines of the sonnet
Shakespeare presents his young friend with three images of himself as an aging
man: a bleak late autumn scene, twilight, and an image of a dying fire.
The poet in the first four lines
presenting the image of the bleak late autumn says, when his young friend
looked at him, he would see an image of those times of the year when the leaves
were yellow or have fallen, or when the trees had no leaves at all and the bare
branches where the sweet birds recently sang shiver in anticipation of the cold
winter to come. The term “leaves” stand for the number of years left for the
poetic persona to live. The leaves are yellow: old age and sickness. The
unusual reversal of “none, or few” highlights quite poignantly the fear the
poetic persona feels about the very little time he feels that he has left to
live. The reference to the choirs evokes an image of a ruined church. Art that
is believed to be divinely inspired by many found its highest forms of
expression in churches in Britain during the Renaissance. However, during the
reign of Henry VIII many of the great churches that sponsored arts in Britain
were ransacked and destroyed. Therefore, it is quite natural for Shakespeare
who would have seen many of those ruined great churches where great music had
been composed and offered to God in choric performances to see the almost leafless
branches vacated by song birds as ruined church choirs. Reading between the
lines, this might be an indication of his fear of losing his own ability to
produce and perform art with the onset of old age. An artist who cannot produce
and perform art would surely look like a leafless branch or a ruined choir
vacated by its occupants. The branches vacated by song birds could also be read
as a reference to those artists who used to seek the poetic persona out when his
sap was green. They have left him in his old age. At
the same time, this metaphor pays a complement to the receiver of the poem with
the allusion that he unlike the birds that have left the tree has not left the
aging poet.
In lines 5-8, Shakespeare presents himself
as twilight. He says that his friend would see in him the twilight that remains
after the sunset fades in the west, which by and by is replaced by black night,
the twin of death. The poet quite casually slips in a euphemism and signals to
his friend that his death might not be too far off when he says that the night
that comes after twilight is really “Death’s second self, that seals up all in
rest.”
In lines 9-12, Shakespeare compares
himself to a dying fire. He invites his friend to see in him the remains of a
fire glowing feebly atop the ashes as if it lay on its own deathbed; the ashes
produced by the logs would ultimately smother the fire. The term “ashes”
recalls to the mind the Christian burial prayer “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
…” further cementing the idea that things born must eventually die.
The Renaissance was an age that
wholeheartedly encouraged the practice of the late Classical philosophy carpe diam. It is believed that
Shakespeare himself died of a fever contracted after a bout of heavy drinking
with his friend Ben Jonson. So, being reduced to an old wreckage robbed of his
music would be the last thing the poet would have wanted for himself. The
heart-breaking reality is that the poet knows that despite his aversion to
aging, there is no stopping of it: seasons come and go, day time gives in to
night, and once roaring fires die when the fuel runs out.
In the final couplet, the poet says that
the young man would see all these things, and they would make his love
stronger, because he loved even more what he knew he’d lose before long. The
sonnet is either a declaration of faith in the strength of the relationship
between Shakespeare and his young male friend or as a more cynical person would
put it a wistful yearning for something to remain unchanged despite change.
It must be said that the images
Shakespeare has selected to illustrate the point that he is aging and his death
might not be too far off are all full of colours that are rapidly being
overtaken by darkness. Still, the colours are still there. One might say that
it is the dying fire that burns brightest.
Techniques:
·
Word choice
o
me/you – establishes a sense of
intimacy
o
When yellow leaves, or none, or
few, - confusion of word order signals unpredictability and insecurity he feels
as a result
o
Inversion – “This thou
percei’st”
o
black night – signals dislike fear
o
the final
couplet is free of imagery overtly figurative use of language
·
Figurative
language/imagery/sound effect
o
Visual image of a tree in the
autumn – metaphor for old age, sickness, loss of vitality, physical weakness,
etc.
o
Auditory image of singing birds
– about the kind of life he lead earlier – he was sought after by other artists
in contrast to the lonely life he lead now – sense of betrayal – fair-weather
friends; sense of self-loathing, anger, etc.
o
2nd q: late evening
– visual image
o
Night personified – a metaphor
for death – as day inevitably has to give into night, the poetic persona has to
give into death –the narrator is so powerless, impotent confronted by this “truth” or the fact of life
o
Visual image of a dying fire –
signals the degeneration of the body and spirit as a result of our youthful
usages of our faculties and the body as a whole. In order to live we must spend
its resources however as a result the body degenerates …..this understanding
evokes sadness understanding of … regret the loss
o
Repetition of the idea “thou mayst in me behold” in slightly different
ways
o
In the three quatrains –
repeated use of /d/, /b/, /g/ and long vowel sounds – what kind of atmosphere
is created?
o
In the last couplet /l/ and /s/
and shorter vowel sounds – what do these things do to the atmosphere of the
poem (500 words)
Further reading:
Sonnet 29, 30, 71, 116
Thinking critically
- What three
metaphors does the speaker use to describe himself? What contrast between the speaker and
his beloved is implied?
- What seasonal
images do you see in this poem? How do these images contribute to the
poem’s tone of loss and sadness?
- Find the turn in this poem.
- What does the
speaker tell his beloved in the final couplet?
- The idea in
line 12 is somewhat compressed. Paraphrase it using your own words after
thinking about what originally “nourished” the speaker’s fires – fires
that are now “choked” – consumed?
Writing:
- Discuss how
word choice, figurative language, imagery and sound effects work together
to create the tone of the sonnet.
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