sonnet 116- shakespeare

context

• up to sonnet 126- language is romantic and loving

• sonnets 127-152- language becomes more sexual

synopsis

• love is going to stand the test of time and hardship

• repeated motif of guideness

octave:1-4

“let me not to the marriage of true mindes”: clear calm tone maintained reflects unchanging nature of love/ immediatley evokes sacrament of marriage- speaker suggests that theunion of two suited minds should be free to join together( being gay was illegal) - love does not need to be recognised by law or church because its primarily spiritua( its the compatability that matter not whether its enshrined by law)

“admit idpediments, love is not love”: negative- defines love by what it’s not/ enjambment- separates marriage from impediments emphasising true love should have none

“which alters when it alteration findes”: love can’t be “altered” or “bent” by hardship/ if lover departs and is “remover” true love remains, although it may become torturous

“or bends with the remover to remove.”: its not true love if “remover” succeeds in removing love, end-stopped for finality, showing that shakespeare believes what he is saying to be fact

octave:4-8

“O no, it is an ever fixed marke”: land mark- metaphor- refered to light house. lighthouses guide ships and without harrowing to storms- love can be a guiding light and can withstand trials

“that looks on tempests and is never shaken;”: dark imagery/ symbolises journey to get to love/ she is the storm he has to navigate

“it is the star to ever wandring barke”: determiner- “the” highlights importance of star and makes it singular- love should be the one aim of life/ metaphor- ships guided by stars; allusion to love’s guiding qualities/ renaissance rellaince on stars and astrology

““whose worths unknowne, although his higth be taken.”: paradoxical, in those times nobody knew what stars were made of hence, didnt know worth but used to measure allignment- it can be measured in law but only lovers know worth, to outsiders its worth cannot be determined

sestet: quatrain

“lov’s not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks”: true love withstands time and remains even when youth is gone- emphasised by elongated line which contains extra syllable/ “Times” capitalisation indicates it has not been personified as grimreaper- enforced by a “sickle”( scythe)- death is inescapable ehnce physical attributes “rosie lips and cheeks” will pale under “compasses come”- love is eternal and “not Times foole” (return to negative definitions)

“within his bending sickles compasse come,”: imagery of death/ alliteration echoes sounds of clock ticking/ sibilancr like life sliping away gently

“Love alters not with his breefe houes and weekes,”: jump from “hours” to “weekes” seems hyperbolic

“But beares it out even to the edge of doome:”: refers to last day/ day of judgement/ Shakespeare says love will endure till then

sestet-couplet

paradox and rhyming couplet- love marries reality with idealism, possibility with impossibility, ineffable but defined by what its not- its comodity does not make sense but we all understand it because it is unconcievably there

love is expressed in this sonnet because it is the only way: love is endowed withing everything we give time and devotion

iambic pentameter

• heartbeat sound reflects subject matter

• first lines meter is irregular- illustrative of love itself: it weathers and overcomes storms eithout altering its nature, just as meter has some rocky parts but smooths out and conforms to sonnet form