Metaphorically Speaking – Sonnet 73Love is a blanket of bright, colorful flowers covering a beautiful rolling meadow on a breezy summer day. Similar metaphorical images appear in many famous poems including Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73". Metaphor is the most basic tool that poets use to convey meaning beyond literal speech (Guth 473). Shakespeare's use of metaphors in this sonnet conveys the theme of the inevitable process of aging. Shakespeare "establishes and extends a metaphor that illuminates the central meaning of the poem" and compares the inevitability of old age to three different aspects of nature (Prather). Likewise all metaphorical quatrains begin with the phrase “thou canst see in me” or “in me thou seeest” (Shakespeare 1-5). These sentences reveal the author's awareness of the natural process that occurs within his body and he compares this aging process to the three natural events of nature, including the seasonal change of autumn, a sunset and a fire going out slowly. Shakespeare metaphorically links his timely aging to the seasonal change in autumn. The first four lines of his poem read: "That time of year you can see in me / When the yellow leaves, or none, or few, hang / On those branches that tremble against the cold, / Naked ruined choirs, where late the sweet the birds sang" (Shakespeare 1-4). Shakespeare compares aging and the approach of death to the coming and dying of autumn. Guth and Rico explain that Shakespeare uses the metaphor of autumn to describe "the approach of old age as the late autumn of the speaker's life" (568). It gives its readers the image of the last yellow leaves clinging to the bare branches just like humans clinging to their... medium of paper... as you perceive, which makes your love stronger, / Loving that good which you will have to leave before long [before long] (Shakespeare 13-14). Through these last two lines, Shakespeare conveys to his readers the importance of holding on to life and love as it exists for one day it will cease to exist. Works Cited Guth, Hans P. and Gabriele L. Rico, eds. Discovering literature: stories, poems, plays. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997, 473. Prather, William. "Essay Topics". April 1, 1999. Online publication. English 1102: Discovering Literature Online Spring 1999 Syllabus. April 6, 1999.http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~wprather/teaching/1102OL/essfour02.html.Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 73." Discovering literature: stories, poems, plays. Ed. Hans P. Guth and Gabriele L. Rico. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 568-569.