Sonnet 98 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the persona expresses his love towards a young man. It is the second of a group of three sonnets ( 97 to 99) to treat a separation of the speaker from his beloved.

Paraphrase

We were apart during the spring, when everything feels young, even aged

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

; however, none of the beauty I saw around me could bring me into sympathy with my surroundings. I could not admire the lily or the rose, since these were to me only images of you. Thus, it still seemed winter to me, since you were away.

Structure

Sonnet 98 is an English or Shakespearean

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

. The English sonnet has three

quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...

s, followed by a final rhyming

couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

. It follows the typical

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...

of the form, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambi ...

, a type of poetic

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 4th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

  ×   /  ×  / ×    /      ×    /      ×    / 
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. (98.4)

:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. The 12th line potentially exhibits two metrical variations: first, an initial reversal, second, the rightward movement of the fourth ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a ''minor ionic''):

  /   ×  ×   /    ×   /  ×   ×  /     / 
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. (98.12)

The same variations, in the same positions, are also potentially present in line 5. However, if the repetition of the word "nor" draws special emphasis from the reader, both positions would be affected, resulting in the somewhat more regular:

 ×   /    ×  /   ×   /     /    ×   ×     / 
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell (98.5)

The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: line 3's "spirit" is one syllable (possibly pronounced as ''spear't'', ''sprite'', ''sprit'', or ''spurt''Booth 2000, p. 262.), line 6's "different" is two syllables and "flowers" is one.

Source and analysis

Sidney Lee Sir Sidney Lee (5 December 1859 – 3 March 1926) was an English biographer, writer, and critic. Biography Lee was born Solomon Lazarus Lee in 1859 at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London. He was educated at the City of London School , ...

notes, this poem, like most Renaissance sonnets on similar themes, derives ultimately from

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited w ...

's sonnet 42; he cites examples from

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

and

Sidney Sidney may refer to: People * Sidney (surname), English surname * Sidney (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Sidney (footballer, born 1972), full name Sidney da Silva Souza, Brazilian football defensive midfielder * ...

Edward Dowden Edward Dowden (3 May 18434 April 1913) was an Irish critic, professor, and poet. Biography He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edinburgh ...

notes a resemblance to Spenser's ''Amoretti'' 64.

G. Wilson Knight George Richard Wilson Knight (1897–1985) was an English literary critic and academic, known particularly for his interpretation of mythic content in literature, and ''The Wheel of Fire'', a collection of essays on Shakespeare's plays. He was a ...

connects the rose and lily of this poem to what he sees as a pattern of flower symbolism in the cycle.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 098 British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare