Today’s Questions to Consider…
1. What are some of the literary devices
(analogies, alliteration, personification,
assonance, consonance, hyperbole, cacophony,
metaphor, etc.) Shakespeare employs?
2. What are the tone and the mood of this
piece? What literary devices does
Shakespeare employ to establish them?
3. Where is the volta of this sonnet?
4. What does it all add up to? Translation:
What is the theme of the sonnet?
Sonnet CXVI
By William Shakespeare
Today We Will Focus On:
Shakespeare’s definition of love
by studying the figurative
language and the analogies
Sonnet CXVI presents.
Terms That May be Unfamiliar to You
Line 4] remover: the one who departs from love.
5] a sea mark, a prominent navigational feature, a
beacon, for guidance of shipping. In the days
before lighthouses, mariners used well known
and prominent features on the land as a guide to
fix their position at sea.
8] worth's unknown: man cannot grasp the star's
heavenly worth and astrological influence,
although its angle of elevation above the horizon
could be measured.
10] his bending sickle's compass: Time or Death’s
sickle’s path. Sickle=
12] edge of doom: the brink of Doomsday.
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:
5 O no! it is an ever-fixed 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.
9 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.
13
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Do we need to translate the sonnet or any portion of it
before you answer questions?
Stanza One
Lett me nott tto the marriage of ttrue minds
Admitt impediments.
t Love is nott love
t when itt alteration
t
Which alters
finds,
t remove:
Or bends with the remover to
Line 4] remover: the one who departs from love.
Stanza Two
O no! itt is an ever-fixed mark
k
t and is never shaken;
k on ttempests
k
Thatt looks
t tto every wandering bark,
k
Itt is the star
W
k
Whose w
worth's unknown, although his heightt be ttaken.
Can you identify the consonance and assonance
in this stanza? What is the effect on the tone?
Characterize the analogy Shakespeare is setting
up in this quatrain. What is the effect of the
punctuation in these lines?
5] a mark, a prominent navigational feature, a beacon, for
guidance of shipping. In the days before lighthouses,
mariners used well known and prominent features on the
land as a guide to fix their position at sea.
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.
Explain the personification in this stanza. What is the
relationship of Love and Time?
12] edge of doom: the brink of
Doomsday.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
How would you paraphrase Shakespeare’s attitude
about love? Which literary device is this an example
of?
Would it change your view if I explained that this
sonnet is in between three that discuss the question
of how love deceives both eye and mind and
judgment, and is then followed by four others which
attempt to excuse the poet's own unfaithfulness and
betrayal of the beloved?
Many Thanks To…
Here’s where your works cited will go if
you consult any sources for your
analysis.
Since I only consulted my brain, no
sources are necessary.
Anything Else?