Sonnet 73
Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me BeholdThis sonnet by William Shakespeare can be regarded as a quite regular representation of what is called a "Shakespearean sonnet". Not only that it is written by him, but as one will see the structure and the theme are really close to what can be found in other typical Shakespearean sonnets.Talking about the form, it must be mentioned that the poem is divided into an octave consisting of two quartets and a sestet consisting of two tercets. The quartets are indicated by full stops whereas the existance of the tercets is not supported by punctuation marks. Nevertheless one can assume that there actually are two tercets although in this case it is not of any importance with regard to the content. The heroic couplet .which is often hinted at by a caesura introduced by a full stop, is again not set apart from the rest of the text by a punctuation mark, but the content gives evidence to the fact that the last two verses do function as a heroic couplet (the message is formulated in this couplet). The rhyme scheme of the poem is definetely regular as you see cross rhymes throughout the first twelve verses and a pair rhyme in the heroic couplet (ababcdcdefefgg). Turning to the
This has to be seen as an allusion to humans` mortality. In the first stanza (the first quartet), the speaker compares himself to a season, which is not given by name. The image presented is an abondonned cold place where no living creatures, neither human beings nor animals, remain but all have left. Although there are a few exceptions in general the iambic pentameter is dominating the rythm of the sonnet. To put it in a nut shell, the speaker states a clear warning which implies not only not to forget about mortality but to treat the person you love respectfully with regard to the transitoriness both of life and love. So the end of the year serves as a symbol for the forthcoming "death" of the year. Line four and eleven show slight deviations in stress as they do not begin with an unstressed syllable following a stressed syllable. This can be seen again as an allusion to men`s mortality as the author even calls the night "Death`s second self" (line 8). Of course, death should always be relevant for a human, but remembering the fact Shakespeare wrote this sonnet in his fifties the message stated in the heroic couplet has the character of a warning. It also might be that his loneliness (line 4: ". So to sum up what has been said about the form so far, we can say that this sonnet, the few mentioned irregularities excluded, is very close to an ideal Shakespearean sonnet, especially with regard to matters like rhyme scheme or rythm. meter, again one realizes that Shakespeare tried to stick to the classic pattern of five iambic feet.
Common topics in this essay:
William Shakespeare,
heroic couplet,
Mayest Behold,
,
speaker situation,
death inevitable,
death relevant,
real love,
forthcoming death,
seen allusion,
exist forever,
shakespearean sonnet,
rhyme scheme,
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