The Longing for a Woman in Sonnet 97, a Poem by William Shakespeare

In Sonnet 97, Shakespeare’s longing and separation from a women can be measured by the cold depressing times of winter, even though they are apart during the summer. Summer is winter without her and every pleasure is ultimately a sorrow.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet puts anyone in his shoes to show how much he misses a women. The speaker is a male adult and speaks in a tone of longing and depression throughout the first 8 lines. This tone changes to a more positive one starting with line 9 as Shakespeare states that without her even summer feels like winter.

The setting of this Sonnet is compared to winter but the time he is away from her is summer all the way to spring. The conflict is Man v.s. Man as Shakespeare is in a mental fight with a women and there is no pleasure in life without her.

Sonnet 97 is split up into 2 sections, the first describing how he has felt with her absence.

The cold and dark days that he has lived through, as if though he has been hibernating and pondering in despair when she will return. In the second section Shakespeare reveals to the reader that his absence from this woman was actually fall through spring. Her presence in his life is what keeps him going and brings him positivity.

Shakespeare uses imagery to help further picture what is going on in the Sonnet. The first section of imagery is in lines 1-8, as he speaks of a bare freezing winter, dark days and different seasons.

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This allows the reader to imagine these descriptions and fully understand what Shakespeare is truly feeling without her. The second section of imagery, metaphors and similes in lines 9-14. He describes crops being planted to a women giving birth after her husband has just died. Shakespeare also describes fruits of nature like hopeless orphans to him because of her absence.

The key line of this Sonnet is when Shakespeare writes “What old December’s bareness everywhere!” This line summarizes the poem by showing that everything his does and goes he sees that it is pointless without her. He needs her to live and she is his energy that keeps him going.