Audiobook · read by volunteers
Sonnet 073
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Read by Alys AtteWater, Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Brett Shand, Graham Williams, Hugh McGuire, Justine Young, Fox in the Stars, Martin Clifton, Mark F. Smith, Stefan Schmelz · 10 chapters · 12 min
About the book
That time of year thou mayst in me behold: Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is one of the most beautiful meditations on ageing in the language. The speaker compares himself to autumn leaves, to twilight, to the dying embers of a fire, and each image is more affecting than the one before. The closing couplet turns the sadness into something unexpected, a reason to love more strongly what must soon be left. Ten LibriVox volunteers read it here, recorded to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday. Each reader finds a slightly different centre of gravity in the poem, and it rewards being heard more than once. The versions are short and the set lasts about twelve minutes. It is a graceful way to spend a quiet moment, and a chance to hear one of the best-loved sonnets in many different ways.
Introduction
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and tradition places his birthday on 23 April. Sonnet 73, published in the 1609 collection of 154 poems, is among the best loved. It was the subject of a weekly poetry project that took place to mark that birthday, in the week of 23 April 2006. The sonnet's three images, autumn, evening and fire, are easy to hear as separate steps, and each reader draws the progression in a slightly different way.
The sonnet is built on three images in three quatrains: the bare boughs of late autumn, the fading light of the evening and the glowing ashes of a fire that is dying. Each is a metaphor for the speaker's age, and each is more intimate than the last. In the closing couplet, the speaker turns to the person he addresses and says that this perception makes the love stronger, since it must be given up before long. The poem is a quiet study in the way time sharpens feeling. This recording is a multi-version collection. LibriVox volunteers prepared ten different recordings of Sonnet 73. There are 10 short chapters, one per reader, and together they last about twelve minutes. Ten readers took part.
Hearing ten readings one after another is a pleasure. The poem is familiar and the words do not change, but the pace, the pauses and the colour of each voice transform the experience, and the images of autumn, dusk and embers feel new every time.
It is a perfect listen for the end of a day or the turn of a season.
Public domain
William Shakespeare died in 1616: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text