Read the following excerpt from Sonnet 97, "How like a winter hath my
absence been," by William Shakespeare:
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
1. William Shakespeare, How like a winter hath my absence been on Shakespeare's sosee
Sonnets, ed. William J. Rolfe (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883), 95.
Which of the following is the most likely explanation for how the structure of
the poem contributes to its meaning?
A. The repetition of "what" within the poem's lyric structure
emphasizes all the different ways that the speaker's feelings are
like winter.
B. The rhyming of "been" with "seen" shows that the speaker has
forgotten about his true love.
C. The phrase "dark days" is an element of epic structure that
represents both the winter's lack of sunlight and the speaker's
gloomy mood.
D. The epic structure of the comparison between winter and the
speaker's relationship suggests that his love is cold and distant,
much like the nation.