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| That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold |
| 作者Author / William Shakespeare 威廉．莎士比亞 |
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Study Questions
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That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold
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| 1. logical structure |
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The three quartrains repeat the words "in me" ("in me behold"; "In me thou see'st"; "In me thou see'st"), and the final couplet carries this idea ("This thou perceiv'st") to a conclusion (which makes thy love more strong..."). What does the listener see in the speaker, that makes the former loves the latter more?
--If the final couplet presents a kind of carpe diem argument, how is this poem different from a typical carpe diem poem? |
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| 2. metaphor and imagery |
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- In the first quatrain, what season of the year does the speaker compare himself to? Is the speaker old or young? How does the speaker feel about growing old?
- In the second quatrain, what time of the day does the speaker compare himself to? How is he like twilight? How is night like "death's second self"?
- In the third quatrain the speaker compares himself to the dying of a fire. How is his old age like a "glowing fire"?
- In the final couplet the speaker again addesses "thou." Who is he talking to? What is their relationship? What does he think will be the result of the listener's "perceiving" that his life is nearing its end?
As you may have found out, what the listener sees in the speaker is aging and the coming death, which is compared to autumn, sunset and dying fire respectively in the three quartrains. Around each of these metaphors, again, images and metaphors cluster.
- Clusters of metaphors & images
- In each set of images/metaphors, some worth close analysis. How is "Bare ruined choirs"(l. 4) related to autumn trees? What does "Death's second self" (l. 8) refer to? Why does fire lie "on the ashes of his youth" (l. 10)?
- Is there anything common among these three sets of images? (Are there any common images of, say, light or heat in the poem? Do the images remind us of the past youth, or suggest death, or both?)
Do the metaphors of aging--i.e., autumn, sunset and dying fire--suggest any kind of development (clue: in terms of the length of the three phenomena)?
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