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

Eroticism and Mortality in Shakespeares Sonnet 73 William Shakespeares sonnet cycle is famous with its rich metaphorical style. The prescience of each sonnet comes 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 human mortality and, moreover, his/her way of heading with it in an effective way. The speaker, especially in terms of his cognizance of while, 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 embrace his/her mortality as an essential element of a human being. This double 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 expiry throughout hu man 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 secant 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 can be taken away one by one. It alludes that death would come as the cop of the last leaf of a tree. Furthermore, the process of getting old and dying happens in a sadistic way. Time seems to tear off ones life which strives to deposit to the boughs which shake against the cold,/ Bare ruined choirs(3). The cold wind, which stri... ...According to him, death means ones discontinuity, but through reproductive activities, one can obtain the continuity of his being. (Georges Bataille. Death and sensationalism A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo. Walkner and Company New Yor, 1962. Origina lly printed with a different title, L,Erotisme, in 1957.) Works 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 sensationalism A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo. Walkner and Company New York, 1962. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 3rd 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.