Shakespeare’s Sonnets
SONNET 18
SONNET 73
• English poet and playwright born in
Stratford-on-Avon
• Works include 38 plays,154 sonnets,
two narrative poems and several
other poems
• The first 126 appear to address an
unnamed nobleman whom the
speaker loves very much.
• The rest are primarily addressed to a
mysterious woman referred to as the
“dark lady.”
• The sonnet became popular
during the Italian renaissance
when an Italian poet, Francesco
Petrarch, published a sequence
of love sonnets addressed to an
idealized woman called Laura
• The form spread through Europe
where poets wishing to write
about love and romance
popularized the form
• Shakespeare adapted the form to
create the Elizabethan or
Shakespearean sonnet.
 SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET PATTERNS
• Written as a fourteen-line lyric poem
• Written in iambic pentameter—ten
syllable lines with accents falling on
every second syllable
• Divided 14 lines into four parts.
• Organized into three quatrains of four
lines that follow an ABAB CDCD EFEF DD
rhyme scheme
• Contain a mixture of enjambment and
end-stops
What is Iambic Pentameter?
• Quite simply, iambic pentameter
sounds like this: dee DUM, dee
DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee
DUM.
• It consists of a line of five iambic
feet, ten syllables with five
unstressed and five stressed
syllables.
• It is the first and last sound we
ever hear—it is the rhythm of the
human heart beat.
Note first person identifying this as a personal
poem. Also, the rhetorical question sets the
basic comparison of the poem.
First Quatrain
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
The speaker uses simple, informal
language to show familiarity with the
object of his affections.
Summer is personified to show how
summer and beauty cannot last.
Second Quatrain
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
The “eye” and “his…complexion” continue
the personification to show that nature is
not perfect.
This refers to the natural changes that
age brings.
The choice of diction here and with
“lease” refers to economics inferring that
“he” is the speaker’s property.
The volta
moves from a
literal
discussion of
summer to the
subject’s
beauty, which
highlights the
effectiveness of
poetry.
Third Quatrain
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
The personification is inverted here to
describe the beloved in terms of nature.
The extended metaphor of nature concludes in
this final line suggesting that love needs
cultivating (like rows of crops).
Death is personified to exaggerate the beloved’s triumph.
Final Couplet
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
The repetition of the word “So” adds to the
speaker’s reasoning and reaffirms the poet’s
hope that as long as mankind is in existence, his
poetry will survive as well his the immortality of
his muse.
The rhyming couplet and the simple diction
reinforce the sincerity of the speaker’s emotion.
Most critics attribute the subject of this poem to
Shakespeare’s dear friend and patron.
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 ruin'd 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 see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Content
The sonnet addresses the poet’s thoughts of his own mortality while
addressing the ravages of time on his physical well-being and the mental
anguish of moving closer to death.
• The speaker prepares his young friend for the metaphorical death of his
youth and passion.
• The linear development of the quatrains shows that focus. The first two
quatrains establishes what the young man sees: yellow leaves, bare
boughs, and a fading sun. The third quatrain reveals the metaphor—the
speaker laments the death of his youth and his youthful desires—the
things that sustained his relationship with the young man.
Throughout the sonnets addressed to the young man, the poet repeatedly
imparts his wisdom of Time’s wrath and the effect it will have on both of
them.
First Quatrain
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 ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
The time of year referenced by the
speaker is autumn, the season the
represents old age. The speaker
prepares his friend for his coming
“winter”—the death of his youth
and passion. Metaphors for aging
continue throughout the poem.
The use of
commas create
focus on the
negative images
associated with
the effects of
time.
“Bare ruin’d choirs” refer to the ruins of a church
where once birds sang.
Second Quatrain
Metaphor for aging
continues with
“twilight,” which is the
fading of his youth.
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.
The abundance of
negative diction adds
to the depressing
tone and adds a note
of self-pity.
Death is personified here
to stress the speaker’s
anxiety.
Alliteration of the “S” sound
illustrates the ease with which
the latter stage of life comes.
Third Quatrain
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
The negative imagery continues as does the
metaphor of aging as the fire extinguishes leaving
only the “ashes” of his youth. This final metaphor
fails to represent a cycle of life, so his “ashes”
represent the end.
Note how the metaphors shorten in each
quatrain: months to hours to minutes. This
represents the rapid rate at which old age attacks
the body.
Final Couplet
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
The couplet is the volta. The subject moves away from the poet and the
comments are directed at the “lover,” who is being warned to strengthen his
emotions as the speaker “must leave ere long.”
Critics debate this phrase. Does the poet infer the young man will also lose
his youth and passion or does the poet refer to his own imminent demise?
Is the poet begging the young man to continue to love him?
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 73. Ed. Amanda
Mabillard. Shakespeare Online. 8 Dec. 2012. <
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/73detail.html
http://www.cieliterature.com/as-level-songs-of-ourselvespart-1/