ABSTRACT
“That time of year,” number 73, is the centerpiece of this run of four sonnets. Their numbering and sequentiality are those established by the first edition, the 1609 Quarto, wherein the title appears on the title page as SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Of all 154 of those sonnets, the seventy-third is among the most widely recognized and highly acclaimed, and, whether as cause or effect of its renown, few if any have more often been reprinted. Anthologists, however, almost invariably print it out of context, unyoked by violence from its neighbors, and they thereby deprive it of its connective function and a dimension of its meaning.
