Free Essays On Shakespeares Sonnet 97 :: Sonnet essays

Analysis of Sonnet 97   How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the transient year What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen- What old Decembers bareness everywhere And yet this time removd was summers time,- The teeming autumn big with rich make up Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like widowd wombs after their lords decease Yet this broad issue seemd to me But hope of orphans, and unfatherd fruit For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away the very birds are mute Or if they sing, tis with so dull a cheer That leaves look pale, dreading the winters near.     What a beginning to a enormous sonnet. This sonnet, understood quite will in the first quatrain, presents a few difficulties throughout the second and third quatrains. This is obviously addressed to a loved one, more(prenominal) specifically a woman who Shakespeare loved. 5 This period of separation from you was due to summer, where summers time signifies his youth, moreover, his sexual prime. 6 Overflowing autumn his middle age is rich with children produced from luxuriant or frolicsome experiences of my youth. fall 8 closes this quatrain with a more happy than mournful meaning, for the widowed reveres the child even more after the fathers death. In line 9, I read abundant issue as topic of general debate or concern, referring to the lords decease in line 8, but it could also mean a person cap subject of direction many children, either the addressee or the woman of his prime, or even Shakespeare himself. If the first, then it is addressed to more than one person and is a result of his absence--he is not able to produce children, only obtain orphans. But if the second, it modifies his hope for orphans. If Shakespeare is the abundant issue then this is a fine reading however, if the abundant issue is the child of the widow, this poses a problem because it faults logic to say that the mother is widowed Yet her child is an o rphan.