Sonnet 73

by William Shakespeare · 1609 · 1 Min. Lesezeit · 14 Zeilen

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Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare is a poem about approaching death and the stronger love that awareness of loss can inspire. The speaker asks another person to see his fading life through three images. First, he resembles a late season when a few yellow leaves cling to cold, shaking branches, and birds no longer sing there. Next, he becomes the twilight after sunset, soon swallowed by night, which he compares to death. Finally, he is a dying fire resting on the ashes of what once fed it. Each image brings the ending closer. In the final two lines, the speaker says that recognizing this approaching loss makes the other person love more strongly what must soon be left behind.

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs 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 perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

Was es bedeutet, Zeile für Zeile

Zeilen 1 bis 4: The speaker invites the person he addresses to see him as a tree near winter, with few or no yellow leaves remaining. Cold branches become empty choir spaces where birds once sang. The contrast between earlier song and present bareness makes declining life feel like both physical loss and silence.

Zeilen 5 bis 8: The speaker shifts from a fading season to the last light of a single day. Twilight disappears in the west, and darkness soon replaces it. Calling night a second version of death connects the familiar ending of daylight with the greater ending of life, when all activity gives way to rest.

Zeilen 9 bis 12: The third comparison places the speaker in a fire’s remaining glow. Its ashes represent spent youth and form the bed where the fire will die. The same material that once sustained the flames now lies beneath their fading remains, linking the speaker’s present decline to the life already used up.

Zeilen 13 bis 14: The closing lines turn from the speaker’s decline to the other person’s response. Seeing that their time together is limited strengthens that person’s love. The poem ends not by escaping death, but by suggesting that expected separation can make present love more intense.

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Drei Fragen zum Nachdenken

How does the movement from a season to twilight to a dying fire change your sense of remaining time?
What do the empty choir spaces and absent birds add to the poem’s picture of aging?
How do the final two lines change the meaning of the three images that come before them?

3 Monate kostenlos

200.000+ Klassiker. Jedes Format, zum Einstieg kostenlos.

eBooks und 15-Minuten-Zusammenfassungen sowie jedes Buch zum Selbstkostenpreis gedruckt, auch im Großdruck.

Kostenlos startenJährliche Verlängerung · Jederzeit kündbar

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