S o n n e t 116
Introduction
~of Sonnet ________________________________Cathy
~of Shakespeare____________________________Jamie
Paraphrase___________________________________Fransca
Vocabulary___________________________________Cathy
Main Idea____________________________________Glory
Structure_____________________________________Glory
Metaphor____________________________________Baris
Conclusion__________________________________Fransca
Reflection____________________________________Jamie
~ of Sonnets
Original Italian Sonnets are rhymed poems consisting of fourteen lines, the
first eight making up the octet and the last six lines being the sestet. The
Shakespearean Sonnet (which differs slightly from the Italian (or
Petrarchian) Sonnet and the Spenserian Sonnet) end with a rhymed
couplet and follows the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. Thus, the
octet/sestet structure can be alternatively divided into three quatrains
(sets of four lines) with alternating rhymes concluding in a rhymed
couplet. Shakespearean Sonnets which consists of 154 sonnets falls into
two groups:
A. 1-126 : addressed to a beloved friend.
B. 127-154: addressed to a malignant but fascinating “Dark Lady”,
whom the poet loves in spite of himself.
~ of Sonnets
When the sonnet was imported into England from the Italy,
early in the sixteenth century, it was understood to comprise
a set of formal conventions (fourteen lines of iambic
pentameter, a fixed rhyme scheme) and, of equal importance,
a set of thematic and rhetorical conventions. Sonnets came
in groups, or sequences. They told a story; or rather, they
refused to tell a story outright but were built around a story
that took place in the space between individual lyrics.
(Cited from http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/soundings/shakespeare.htm)
~ of Background of Sonnet 116
The story was of love -- love unrequited, love requited but
unfulfilled, love so fleetingly fulfilled as merely to make
suffering keener, love thwarted by the beloved's absence, or
aloofness, or prior possession by another. Impediment was as
central to the sonnet as was love. Impediment produced the
lyric voice. Without impediment, the lover would have no
need to resort to poetry; he would have something better to
do.
~of Shakespeare
•1564 :Shakespeare Born
•1565-1581 :1567(?) Richard Burbage, the greatest tragedian of the age, who would
eventually portray Hamlet, Lear, Othello and all Shakespeare's great parts born
•1582 :Shakespeare Married
•1583 :Birth of daughter Susanna
The Queen's Company is formed in London
•1585 :Birth of twins, Judith and Hamnet
•1587(?)-1592 :Departure from Stratford
Establishment in London as an actor/playwright
(The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew,Henry VI, 1,2,3
Richard III )
1593 :Preferment sought through aristocratic connections - dedicates Venus and
Lucrece to Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton - possibly the youth of the Sonnets
(1593 Venus and Adonis,Begins writing the Sonnets, probably completed by c.1597 or
earlier, Two Gentlemen of Verona,Love's Labour's Lost )
~of Shakespeare
1594 :Founding member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (1594 The Rape of
Lucrece )
1594-1596 :The Lyrical masterpieces Prosperity and recognition as the leading
London playwright(Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II
Merchant of Venice )
1597-1599 :Artistic Maturity Purchases New Place, Stratford with other
significant investments
(Henry IV,1,2, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Much Ado About
Nothing, Henry V, Julius Caesar )
1600-1608 :The Period of the Great Tragedies & Problem Plays
(Twelfth Night,,Hamlet,,Troilus & Cressida, Alls Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measure,Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Clepatra
Coriolanus, Timon of Athens )
~of Shakespeare
1609-1611 :Period of the Romances
1609 Publication of the Sonnets
(Pericles Prince of Tyre
Cymbeline
The Winter's Tale
The Tempest )
1612-1616 :Shakespeare probably retires from London life to Stratford
Works on collaborations with John Fletcher. March 1616 Shakespeare apparently
ill revises his will
April 23, 1616 Shakespeare dies and is burried at Holy trinity Church, Stratford
(Henry VIII
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Cardenio )
Cited from: http://www.mddesignworks.com/html/sonnetdt.html
Do not let me accept any difficulties in true love. Love (which changes
when it finds an alteration in circumstances) is not love. Love (
that bends to forces which intends to remove it) is not true love. Oh no! true
love is a fixed mark (that sees storms but is never shaken by the storm0;It [love]
is the guiding star to every lost ship—the value of the star may not be calculated,
but its height can be used to find directions. Love is not at the mercy of Time
(love cannot be fooled by time), though people’s youth and beauty (rosy lips and
cheeks) come within the influence of time (that our youth and beauty are harvest
by [Time's] sickle) . Love does not alter with hours and weeks. But, rather, it
endures until the end of the world. If I am proved wrong about these
thoughts on love, then I recant all that I have written,
and no man has ever [really] loved.
1.Words about difficulty
--impediment: hindrance, obstruction, lisp or stammer
Ex. There are many impediments that we can’t pass
through the narrow street.
--bends: yields, changes direction, is untrue and
inconstant towards a loved one.
Ex. He didn’t bend any objection of the discussion
--tempests: big storm with heavy raining. (That looks on
tempests---because of their height, the sea-marks would
appear to be looking down on the world below, and
almost riding above the tempests. Because of their
solidity storms had no effect on them.)
Ex. The tempest destroyed all the property of the town
last night.
.
--remover: to make oneself different in accordance with the
changes in the other person. ( In this context, the word remove
has a rather indefinite meaning, suggestive of moving
something or someone out of the way, possibly even suggestive
of subterfuge.)
Ex. Tom is a remover who always change his ideas
2.Words about true love
--ever-fixed mark: a sea mark, a prominent navigational feature,
a beacon, for guidance of shipping. (permanent and
unshakeable, a guide to the storm tossed mariner.)
Ex. There are many ever-fixed marks on the sea in order to
give attention to every navigator.
--wandering bark: ship or boat that is wandering and possibly
lost. (It can identify its position by reference to the Pole star.)
Ex. People have wandering bark of fire on the ship
3.Words about time
--sickle: a tool which is for cutting grain, thing like this. ( It
describes “Time”)
Ex. Farmers use sickles to harvesting straws.
--doom: the last day, the day of judgement, the day of death. (It
means a person’s death, as it still does in the phrase, to meet one’s
doom or can be applied to the day of the Last Judgement, or the
judgement itself.)
Ex. Tomorrow will be a doom that I need to hand in all the
assignments which I haven’t finished yet
his: Time’s. (all life is fleeting, and human life is measured by the
brief hours and weeks of experience; compare with the eternity of
love, any unit of time is short)
Ex. We should value his (time’s)life.
Cited from:http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/116comm.htm
Shakespeare's sonnets are concerned with
love, beauty, poetry, and, perhaps most pervasively,
on the force that the passage of time exerts upon all
three. In this Sonnet, the narrator tells the “young man”
addressed in this piece that “Love’s not time’s fool”.
Although covering a broad range of topics and narrative
situations, it is the human capacity to adapt to the force of
time “brief hours and weeks”, of the seasons of human
life “looks on tempests” / “the edge of doom”, that
constituted the thematic core of the sonnets.
1. Love is constant and strong
(The first quatrain)
2. Love will survive any crisis,
love’s actual worth cannot be
known.( The second quatrain)
3. Love is stable throughout
any changes. ( The third quatrain)
 4. The poet stands firmly
of his judgment.( The final
couplet )
1. ever-fixed mark: permanent and unshakeable, always there as a
guide to the storm tossed mariner.
2. marriage of true minds: “true” means constant, faithful, unchanging,
truthful and this suggests a union that is non-physical, Platonic and
idealistic. The language draws us to think about the marriage
service and that is a ceremony designed specifically to marry two
people, not two abstract Platonic ideals which have decided to be wed.
3. compass: scope, the arc of the circle created by
the sweep of the sickle. Referring to the previous lines,
time, with his sickle, sweeps down the mortal lovers,
the rosy lips and cheeks, as if they were blades of grass.
4. his: all life is fleeting, and human life is measured by the brief
hours and weeks of experience. In comparison with the
eternity of love, any unit of time is short.
5. rosy lips and cheeks: all mortal beauty but especially
between lovers. They are cut down by Time’s sickle.
6. Time’s fool, bending sickle’s compass, brief hours and weeks,
the edge of doom: all of these words are related to
the time. Time is the most frequently repeated concept and
image in the Sonnets. This is the pervasive Renaissance theme of
mutability, and the poet presents various ways to defy Time.
--- Time’s fool: in terms of the fool employed in large
establishments by the nobility, a favoured character whose
writing enlivened many a dull day.
--- bending sickle: an agricultural implement consisting of a
hook-shaped metal blade with a short handle fitted on a tang.
“Bending” means
1) curved;
2) causing the grass that it cuts to bend and bow;
3) cutting a curved swathe in the grass.
In this sonnet, the bending
sickle implies the “Time” is
flying so fast similar to cutting
the grass with the bending
sickle. But only difference is that:
time is “cutting” away people’s
beauty and youth.
7. star: it lights in the high cleardark sky. The star implies love can
guide every lost ship and find the
right direction, so they won’t get
lost or separate from love.
This sonnet is mainly about love of true minds, which
means true love. The poet first told us what true love is
not, and then explained what true love is, after this he
expressed his thoughts of the relationship between love
and time. At the last couplet, he wrote, ”If this be error,
and upon on me proved. I never writ, nor no man ever
lov’d ” In fact, Shakespeare had many works, which
means the poet stand firmly about his definitions. We
could see how Shakespeare well used these 14 lines.
During working on the report, we read many passage in the
website, some said this sonnet was written to a beloved young
man, but we think if love is as what Shakespeare said, there
should not be any sexual differences. Also, the Shakespeare
language is hard to understand at first, but once you
understand it, you’ll find it a very beautiful language. We most
impressed by the last couplet, it is amazing how much
persuasion he has and his position stand firmly and clearly that
people don’t feel any uncomfortable.
THE
END