Eroticism and Mortality in Shakespeares Sonnet 73 Essay -- Sonnet ess

sexiness and fatality rate in Shakespeares Sonnet 73 William Shakespeares sonnet cycle is famous with its rich metaphorical style. The depth of each sonnet falls from its multilayered meanings and images, which are reinforced by its structure, sound, and rhythm. Sonnet 73 provides an excellent example. This sonnet shows the speakers agony over gentlemans gentleman mortality and, moreover, his/her way of coping with it in an effective way. The speaker, especially in terms of his cognizance of clock cartridge clip, experiences dramatic changes in two ways (1) from time measured by quantity to time as quality, (2) from cyclical time to a linear one. These changes, manifested by a set of images (autumn, twilight, glowing), enable him/her to overlay his/her mortality as an essential element of a human being. This triple structure of the sonnet achieves its richness by its sub-level imagery based on eroticism, which has been one of the most common cures for the inevitability of ones own death throughout human history. A clear contrast exists between the first two quatrains and the third quatrain in terms of the speakers understanding of time. In the first and second base quatrain, the speaker perceives time as a quantitative entity. That time of ones life, in the first quatrain, is not called autumn but described as yellow leaves, or none, or few(1-2). This quantifiable image presents time as if it feces be taken away one by one. It alludes that death would come as the drop of the last leaf of a tree. Furthermore, the process of getting old and dying happens in a sadistic way. Time seems to sunder off ones life which strives to cling to the boughs which shake against the coolness,/ Bare ruined choirs(3). The cold wind, which stri... ...According to him, death means ones discontinuity, but through reproductive activities, one force out obtain the continuity of his being. (Georges Bataille. Death and Sensuality A development of Eroticism an d the Taboo. Walkner and Company New Yor, 1962. Originally printed with a different title, L,Erotisme, in 1957.) working Cited and ConsultedBooth, Stephen, ed. Shakespeares Sonnets. New Haven Yale University Press, 1977.Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. Shakespeares Sonnets. London Arden Shakespeare.Georges Bataille. Death and Sensuality A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo. Walkner and Company New York, 1962. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English third ed. Longman Essex, England Longman Group Ltd. 1995Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 73. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. 3rd. ed. Glenview, IL Scott Foresman, 1980.