Poetic Form

Sonnet 73: Quatrain 3:

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.
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Prose Interpretation
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The fire within me glows, fueled by the remains of its past,
Inevitably it will die among the ashes, suppressed by what once it was sustained.
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My prose interpretation of the original text, Quatrain 3 of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, though similar in meaning and vocabulary, lacks an important aspect of poetry: a distinct poetic form. Structural elements in Shakespeare's sonnet include the four line quatrain, a rhyme scheme of *ababcdcdefefgg, and a rhythmic beat of iambic pentameter. These structural elements alter the reader's perception of the poem's content.

Shakespearean sonnets mandate the use of quatrains, which separate each of Shakespeare's sentences into four individual clauses. In prose form a sentence has no restrictions on its structure. These distinct separations between thoughts give the Shakespeare's sonnet a more formal tone. When read aloud, the pauses between thoughts slow down the pace of the reader give a more elegant feel to the content of the poem. In the prose form, the reader may run through the commas, not giving necessary time for the listener to understand the complex diction and ideas.

The rhyme scheme and rhythmic beat of Shakespeare's poem play an important role in distinguishing it from prose. The abab rhyme pattern, coupled with the 10 beat pattern of iambic pentameter, gives a graceful flow to the poem, not quite achievable with the free-flow of prose. This graceful flow supplements Shakespeare's high-level diction and gives depth and a *third-dimension to the poem, as opposed to the two dimensions of poetry lacking structure and form.

Without these essential structural elements, Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 would lack the grace and elegance that characterizes the fire he writes about in the third quatrain. Shakespeare potrays the fire as "glowing", delicate and small, as it nears the end of its life. The tone of the poem is that of a longing for life in the presence of an inevitable death, and with help from the form and structure, readers are left with a sense of sadness as the fire extinguishes among the ash "it was nourished by."
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* The quatrain I am analyzing falls into the efef part of the rhyme scheme.

* I propose that literary works can be examined on three levels or dimensions: the author's literal meaning, the author's figurative meaning, and the author's meaning portrayed through syntax and structure. 2-Dimensional works are analyzed solely on the basis of literal and figurative meanings. Most poetry will fall into the three-dimensional category due to the fact that form and structure is such a crucial aspect in poetry.