The glowing fire is the elder, ashes are beneath the fire just as youth has passed to develop the adult, the deathbed of a person is the cold embers of the fire which at one point was solid wood that nourished the flames as to a person is consumed by life. Here it appears Shakespeare uses personification in relating the dying out and the process of a fire as to a human life. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,Ĭonsumed with that which it was nourished by. The above is a strong example of symbolism as we see strong images of the writer in the later stages of life approaching the “end of light” which death “seals up.” Which by and by black night doth take away,ĭeath’s second self, that seals up all in rest. We see yellow leaves, or none that it is cold and that the birds have left, which puts us in the mind of late autumn. The symbolism in the first line is defined by the extended metaphor of the following three lines. Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,īare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Parsing the sonnet we have the following: Once again, the fire is dying down, as is the life of the author however, life is still left as the fire still glows. In me thou see’st the glowing of such a fire Line 9 again draws us to his condition as it reads: We see that our writer is on the downside of life slipping toward the end but not yet quite into the night which would more than likely signify his impending death. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day This first line suggests that we are about to discover what season of life he is in Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter or in real terms, youth, prime adulthood, elder years, or final years.
That time of year thou may’st in me behold Lines 1, 5, and 9 contain both repetition in drawing the attention to the condition of the speaker and use symbolism to reflect what that condition is. The task here is to identify and elucidate on the impact of figurative language in William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73.
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