Critical Appreciation Of Sonnet 73

Sonnet 73 is about a speaker who is trying to break it gently to his beloved the news that he’s going to die, that he’s in the last stages of his life, the fall of his life, and that the beloved, the loved one, will have to go on alone. He starts out this way:

“That time of year thou may’st in me behold

When yellow leaves or none, or few, do hang

Upon these boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

So he’s saying to his beloved that (s)he will see right now in him that fall or even late fall time of year when the leaves are just barely hanging on the trees, or when the leaves are already blown away by the winter winds. This image is quite sad, quite lonely, and that fits with the purpose of

Twilight being right before night falls, after the sun has set, that little purple hour of light. The speaker says that time of day is where he is in. And the black night will take away the twilight, and then night is compared to death, death’s second self. The same way death closes down someone’s life, night closes down the day. Night and death are often compared in poetry of this time period, and the readers see that night seals up all in rest. Death seals humans up in coffins, and night seals humans in rest. Of course, he’s saying to the beloved, “I am in the time before death, in the twilight when death’s second self, the night, is going to seal me up in rest.” The word “seal” can mean the seals on the coffin or the just closing the

The loved one notices, which makes her(his) love more strong. The beloved’s love is even stronger as they see him dying. And this is appropriate because many of us feel so much closer to people when realizing that we’re going to lose them. Suddenly we appreciate them more and more, and the very last line refers to this, “To love that well,” meaning to love that. The thing that the beloved loves the speaker, “to love that well, which thou must leave ere long,” to love the person very well, which the beloved is going to be leaving soon. The irony here is that Shakespeare has the person who’s going to continue to living leave. The beloved will leave before the time of the speaker’s death. So we would expect him to be saying that “I’m going to leave you by dying,” but he says, “No, you’re going to need to leave me.” This shows the grieving process that is really is about the survivors being willing to let go of the departed one. Basically saying: “To love me well, which you must leave before long. And one does love well that which is going to be left behind. We realize that, in having to leave someone, that we want to appreciate them and enjoy the last moment we have with them, because we’re going to be