Sonnet 116
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Quatrain 1
• Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Metaphor
• Comparing love to the “marriage of true minds”
• This marriage will not and cannot admit to impediments or flaws.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Definition of love
• Defined in the negative
• “Love is not love”
• Love doesn’t alter or bend when things oppose it.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Oh no! It is an ever-fixéd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Metaphor
• Comparing love to the “ever-fixed mark”
• A prominent object on shore that serves as a guide to sailors
• Comparing love to “the star to every wandering bark”
• The North Star
• Never changing
• Constant
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Consistency and unbending nature of love
• Love is a constant
• It is influenced by nothing, even death
• “Time’s fool”
• Personification
• Death
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
• Turn occurs after line 13.
• If the poet is wrong about his definition of love, then he has never written and no one has ever loved.
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Poetic Devices
– Shakespearean Sonnet
• Rhyme Scheme
• abab cdcd efef gg
• 3 quatrains and 1 couplet
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• ᴗ ´ ᴗ ´ ᴗ ´ ᴗ ´ ᴗ ´
• Oh no! It is an ever fixéd mark
• Iambic Pentameter
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Comparing love to things that remain constant
• Seamark
• North Star
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• Nautical Imagery
• “ever-fixed mark”
• “tempests”
• “wandering bark”
• “star”
• “his height be taken”
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116

• “Love’s not Time’s fool…/within his bending sickle’s compass come” (9-10)
• Time is personified as the grim reaper
Geschke/British Literature
Shakespeare Sonnet 116