Although at first glance Sonnet 101 can stand on its own, it so closely connects to Sonnet 100 that it really in all likelihood should be considered to form with it a pair within this group of four sonnets that they are both part of.

Like Sonnet 100, it addresses itself to Shakespeare's Muse – his poetic inspiration – in a series of rhetorical questions that seek to encourage her to return to him to write further poetry for and about his young lover.

In doing so, it purports to offer a possible explanation for the Muse's absence, but immediately rejects this as unsatisfactory, reminding the Muse of her duty to give the object of his love longevity way beyond his own presence on earth.

Sonnet 100 is the first in a group of four sonnets that speak of a hiatus in Shakespeare's poetry writing to his young lover.

In the collection first published in 1609, this follows Sonnets 97 and 98, which both highlight an absence from the young man that has felt to Shakespeare like winter, with Sonnet 99 acting as something of a bridge between the two themes. Whether, therefore, the silence on Shakespeare's part coincides with this absence, we cannot say with certainty, but it would appear plausible to say the least...

In this special episode, Professor David Crystal OBE, one of the world's leading linguists with over 100 books to his name and a global reputation as a writer and lecturer on Early Modern English, talks to Sebastian Michael about Original Pronunciation (OP) – the way William Shakespeare and his contemporaries would have pronounced English at the time, and how this changes our understanding of Shakespeare's works generally, and specifically the sonnets.

In the collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare published in 1609, Sonnet 99 is unique for two reasons that are possibly related: it is the only sonnet to consist of 15 lines instead of the usual 14, and it is the only sonnet that leans directly on a known source and can therefore be said to be a more or less direct reworking of an existing piece by another poet, rather than presenting a mere variation on a well-worn theme.

The theme itself though is familiar from both classical and Renaissance poetry, but Shakespeare, as we would probably expect by now, manages to furnish his poem with one twist in particular that suggests he may be engaging in more than just a standard rhetorical exercise of imitatio.

When Sonnet 97 spoke of an absence from his lover that felt to Shakespeare "like a winter" even though it actually took place during the summer and/or autumn, Sonnet 98 speaks of either the same or a similar absence that took place during the springtime in April, which, however, on account of not having his lover around, to Shakespeare also seemed like "winter still."

With their many similarities and essentially identical themes, the two sonnets are clearly related, and it is unlikely to be a coincidence that they follow each other in the collection, although we cannot know whether our poet is here talking about a continuous absence from his lover that lasts all the way from late summer into the next spring, or whether he is talking about a renewed period of separation, or whether in fact the two sonnets have somehow got reversed in their order and we are looking at an absence that lasts from spring throughout the summer into the autumn.

This latter scenario seems an unlikely one, as we discussed when looking at Sonnet 97, and so indeed do various other theories which see both these sonnets as merely emotional but not physical periods of separation, or as either referring to periods of separation from two different people, something we also saw and noted in the last episode.

Sonnet 97 ushers in a new phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover, which, following the upheaval, anguish, doubt, and direct criticism of the young man contained in the group that immediately precedes it, comes across as a series of almost serene reflections first, once again, on a period of separation in this sonnet and the next one, and then, in Sonnets 100 to 103, on the challenge of finding the right words to speak of someone as roundly perfect as the young man, with the unusual Sonnet 99 acting as something of a bridge between the two themes that are henceforth being developed.

In this special episode, Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Deputy Director (Education) and Associate Professor in Shakespeare and Theatre at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, talks to Sebastian Michael about the challenges – and joys – of speaking verse in general and Shakespearean verse in particular: how do we do his language justice in a contemporary performance setting and how do we deal with the ways in which the English Renaissance approach to language differs from ours; with a focus also, of course, on the significance this has for reading and reciting the Sonnets.

With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity.

Easing off on the harsh criticism of the young man's behaviour voiced in Sonnet 95, he here brings in a new conciliatory tone which acknowledges that the young man's powers of attracting other people are great and that he could seduce any number of them, but ending on a plea not to do so for the sake of both, and reiterating, for the first time since Sonnet 36, the words 'I love thee', whereby, at first glance perplexingly, it is not only these three words that are repeated here, but the closing couplet in its entirety.