The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 97

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Absence
Content: A beautiful sonnet containing contradictory imagery of winter as a period of absence and a season of rejoining. Magnificent.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

“I’ve missed you so bad while I’ve been away and happy that the year has been fleeting.”

This is a twin-letter sonnet, employing several words that have adjacent identical letters, perhaps signifying the mutuality and closeness of the author and subject: been…thee…fleeting.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness everywhere!

“I’ve missed you warming the cockles of my heart.”

I really like this couplet. He’s very emotive about having missed his subject, his absence tellingly enforced, perhaps due to business commitments, as opposed to being voluntary.

Ironically, (according to the next quatrain) it seems that he is seeing his subject again in December whilst using December to illustrate the coldness and darkness he has experienced whilst he has been absent.

Twin-lettering continues: freezings…seen…bareness.

And yet this time removed was summer's time,
The teeming autumn big with rich increase,

This confirms that although he is equating his feelings of longing with winter, he was in fact absent during Summer and Autumn - the main theatre season. In Autumn, he was aroused by the great expectancy of returning home to see his subject(s).

Twin-lettering continues: summer…teeming.

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease.

This is a brilliant couplet, graphically conveying the pining he has for his subject and the (lately) unfulfilled consummation of their physical relationship.

The austere bareness of old December in line 4 morphs into the productive bearing of line 7.

Twin-lettering continues (in the Quarto): widdowed.

Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit,

This seems to be referring to his way of satisfying his own sexual urges not resulting in offspring: orphans who do not have a father, in contrast to the female widowed wombs in the previous couplet.

Twin-lettering continues: issue seemed.

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;

Coupling of me and thee joining these 2 couplets.

They will have their summer together when they meet again, not while she’s away from him.

Twin-lettering continues: summer…thee.

Summer is alternately capitalised in the Quarto: “sommers” earlier and “Sommer” here.

Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

Resolves to the contradictory imagery of winter again as the season that they meet but symbolises the coldness of their absence from one another.

Twin-lettering concludes: dull…cheer…look (and in the Quarto) neere.

Summer, Autumn and Winter are explicitly referred to in the sonnet, and Spring is faintly echoed in sing, perhaps unintentionally.