Shakespeare\'s Sonnets 71 and 73

Shakespeare Sonnets

In both Sonnet 71 and in Sonnet 73, the narrator contemplates old age and death. Both poems use rich and dark imagery to convey the theme of human mortality, although Sonnet 73 is more filled with metaphor than 71. However, both poems are composed according to the strict rules of the poetic form: in iambic pentameter with fourteen lines organized into three quatrains and a final couplet. Iambic pentameter sets the rhythm of a Shakespearean sonnet, in which every second syllable is stressed. Rhyme scheme in the Shakespearean sonnet is also predictable: the quatrains have an ABAB rhyme sequence but the final couplet is CC. Of the two, Sonnet 73 is more morbid than Sonnet 71, which merely asks that the beloved not mourn or grieve for the speaker's death, but rather, promptly forget him. Both poems show a wise reckoning with the inevitability of death as a natural season of life, even if fear and apprehension of death naturally accompany human consciousness. As with all Shakespearean sonnets, the quatrains progress thematically, and the couplet essentially summarizes the main theme or point of the poem.

Sonnet 71 begins, "No longer mourn for me when I am dead," setting the stage for the theme of the entire poem. The speaker later beseeches his beloved, "Do not so much as my poor name rehearse / But let your love even with my life decay." For the narrator, to grieve will only perpetuate human sorrow and suffering. Death is inevitable, so it is better to forget than to mourn. Moreover, the speaker states in the couplet that excessive mourning might cause others to "mock you with me after I am gone." While the message of Sonnet 71 seems depressing and unromantic, the poem is nevertheless powerfully realistic, for all persons do die. In Sonnet 71, Shakespeare uses some dramatic imagery to strengthen the impact of the poem. For example, lines 3 and 4 read: "Give warning to the world that I am fled / From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell." The visceral reference to being buried in the ground is coupled with auditory imagery in the previous line: "Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell," which probably refers to a funereal church bell. Other imagery conveying the theme of death includes line 10: "When I perhaps compounded am with clay." The speaker is obviously aware that after death his body will simply become one with the elements, and as all living things he will rot and decay. No mention of life after death or the survival of a soul is indicated, and given that the narrator wants the beloved to "let your love even with my life decay," he also does not believe that romantic love is eternal either.