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Saskia vanOmmeren-Egberts Ms. Gardner Honors English 10 1st 23 September 2013 Sonnet 97 Analysis In Shakespeares Sonnet 97, the speaker longs for affection during his lonely times: loneliness is difficult to overcome and through verse the poet portrays his empty feelings. Shakespeare uses melodramatic similes, and contrasting diction to vividly compare the speakers lonely feelings with his enjoyable memories. Shakespeare uses winter as a metaphor to describe how he has been feeling: How like a winter hath my absence been. This simile is a bit melodramatic; however, it conveys that he is feeling extremely angry and jealous of time with his lover since he has been gone. He is comparing his anger and depressing feelings to winter, in which winter is a very sullen and frigid time. He himself is feeling very gloomy and upset since he has been gone and apart from his lover, by comparing himself to winter. Right before the turning point of the poem, the speaker compares life without summer to a husbands death: The teeming autumn big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widowed wombs after their lords deceased. The simile gives a deeper meaning to how the poet feels by comparing two ideas, drastically different. In the earlier line, the poet is describing how much of a good time he had in summer, and then he immediately switched over, using a simile to express his feelings now that he doesnt have summer and felicity. The diction he uses also portrays the theme of loneliness and comparison to heartache and cheerfulness. Right in the beginning of the poem the poet uses words like pleasure and dark days in which only one line separates those two contrasting words. Those words have completely different connotation, causing the reader to know how different those two parts of his life was. Other diction he uses is unfathered and summerpleasures. Yet again, the words are only a line apart, contradicting each other therefore displaying the speakers lonely feelings throughout the poem. Through comparison, the poet is able to have a conversation with the reader, complexly expressing how he is feeling and creating it through verse so that the reader can feel what the speaker is feeling. Through poems and comparison, loneliness is better understood and is relatable. All humans relate to this larger idea of loneliness and through verse the poet recognizes the difficulties it is to overcome it.

van Ommeren-Egberts 2

Original Sonnet: Free to Just Be By Saskia Why cant I have the love I see most days? Viewing the two, living life with blithe love, How did they find it, the world is a maze. Finding who the angels chose for your dove, They found it, and there candles are lit up. I am still hopeful, even though Im feeling. As though I already had a breakup. They see me as different, and theyre teasing. Alas, when the time is right Ill have it They just need to grow up to realize That I am here and Im ready to sit, Just think of a life without goodbyes. And in that escape of bye, Ill be free, Just give me (and them) some time to just be.