Poetic Form

Sonnet 73 Shakespeare

"In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by"

You see in me a glowing fire
Where the ashes of my youth lie
As on the deathbed where it will expire
Dying by what it was previously nourished by

The poetic form of this quatrain slightly enhances the meaning of the poem. If written in simple prose, seen in the paraphrase, the section simply displays a dying man's fire becoming extinguished. Shakespeare's conveyed meaning is very similar to the paraphrase. There are no meanings that can be realistically interpreted in any other ways. However, there are some symbols that can potentially hold two different meanings. In the second life, the ashes could be a symbol of either the end of his youthfulness or possibly bad decisions that he made in his youthful years. The third line is about the fire dying down and ending and the fourth line consequently explains why. The fire becomes "Consumed by that which it was nourished by," pertaining to the wood that turned into ashes that eventually will put out the fire. Once again, the poetic form enhances the meaning very little. The symbolism of the "ashes of youth" determine how the fourth line is read. If the ashes are simply his youthful years, then he is dying most likely because of his old age. Yet if they are mistakes, then the fire that is his life is consumed because of past mistakes or from a certain condition possibly. Symbolism is the main literary device enhanced by Shakespeare's poetic form, primarily seen through the "ashes of youth."

This is the third and final quatrain of Sonnet 73, which leads into a heroic couplet. It brings together the idea of Shakespeare expressing his pitiful state in the previous lines and connects it to the couplet where we learn that the man whom Shakespeare wrote to still loves him regardless. In the first and second quatrains, a concern of loneliness and death is recognized. In the third quatrain, this becomes a reality for Shakespeare. His death is encroaching and his youth is over, and he expresses this to the man. The heroic couplet tells us that the man still loves him, and brings resolve at the end of the sonnet.