Lecture Notes

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare (Europe)

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. The son of
John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward VI
Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the
Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight
years his senior. Together, they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in 1583,
and Judith (whose twin brother died in boyhood), born in 1585.

Little is known about Shakespeare’s activities between 1585 and 1592. Robert
Greene’s A Groatsworth of Wit alludes to him as an actor and playwright. Shakespeare
may have taught at school during this period, but it seems more probable that shortly
after 1585 he went to London to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. Due to the
plague, the London theaters were often closed between June 1592 and April 1594.
During that period, Shakespeare probably had some income from his patron, Henry
Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first two poems, Venus
and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). The former was a long narrative
poem depicting the rejection of Venus by Adonis, his death, and the consequent
disappearance of beauty from the world. Despite conservative objections to the poem’s
glorification of sensuality, it was immensely popular and was reprinted six times during
the nine years following its publication.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain’s company of actors, the most
popular of the companies acting at Court. In 1599, Shakespeare joined a group of
Chamberlain’s Men that would form a syndicate to build and operate a new playhouse:
the Globe, which became the most famous theater of its time. With his share of the
income from the Globe, Shakespeare was able to purchase New Place, his home in
Stratford.
While Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time, evidence
indicates that both he and his contemporaries looked to poetry, not playwriting, for
enduring fame. Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed between 1593 and 1601,
though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of
154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now
recognized as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups: sonnets 1–126,
addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young man, and sonnets 127–
152, to a malignant but fascinating “Dark Lady,” who the poet loves in spite of himself.
Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and the
immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

In his poems and plays, Shakespeare invented thousands of words, often combining or
contorting Latin, French, and native roots. His impressive expansion of the English
language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as: arch-
villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore,
hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog,
and zany.

Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays. These are usually divided into four
categories: histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His earliest plays were
primarily comedies and histories such as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors, but in
1596, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, his second tragedy, and over the next
dozen years he would return to the form, writing the plays for which he is now best
known: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.
In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale,
and The Tempest.

Only eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays were published separately in quarto editions

during his lifetime; a complete collection of his works did not appear until the publication
of the First Folio in 1623, several years after his death. Nonetheless, his contemporaries
recognized Shakespeare's achievements. Francis Meres cited “honey-tongued”
Shakespeare for his plays and poems in 1598, and the Chamberlain’s Men rose to
become the leading dramatic company in London, installed as members of the royal
household in 1603.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in
Stratford. He drew up his will in January of 1616, which included his famous bequest to
his wife of his “second best bed.” He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days
later at Stratford Church.
 Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

William Shakespeare

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.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

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.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Short Description of Sonnet 116

Sonnet 116 was written in the late 16th Century by William Shakespeare at a time of
abundance for sonnets in English literature - Shakespeare himself wrote 154. This
Sonnet in particular is celebrated for its pronouncements on the nature of love. It is
believed to be inspired by Shakespeare’s love for the Earl of Southampton.

Along with sonnets 18 ( 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day' ) and 130 ( 'My
mistress ' eyes are nothing like the sun' ), Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous poems
in the entire sequence. The definition of love that it provides is among the most often
quoted and anthologized in the poetic canon. Essentially, this sonnet presents the
extreme ideal of romantic love: it never changes, it never fades, it outcasts death and
admits no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called
"true" - if love is mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no man
ever loved.

Structure

Form, meter and rhyme scheme

Sonnet 116’ is divided into three quatrains: an octave, a sestet and a final rhyming
couplet. Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter almost consistently. Iambic pentameter
is commonly known to have a heartbeat sound, reflecting Sonnet 116’s subject matter.
The first line’s meter is irregular, however; the stresses are reversed, falling on the first
and third syllables (“Let me not to”) rather than the second and fourth. Normally,
sonnets start out with a regular meter, and any irregularities occur after the meter has
been clearly established. Shakespeare’s choice seems unconventional; the only
example of an Elizabethan sonnet beginning with two trochaic feet is Donne’s Holy
Sonnet XVI (“Fa-ther, part of”). Whatever the reasoning behind his decision, one might
interpret the early irregular of meter as illustrative of love itself: it weathers and
overcomes storms without altering its nature, just as the meter has some rocky parts but
smooths out and conforms clearly to the sonnet form.

Figurative Language

Hyperbole

Shakespeare uses hyperbole throughout ‘Sonnet 116’, which critics have argued makes
its characterization of love unrealistic and outlandish. While readers would likely agree
with the statement that love “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks” (line 11),
less would agree that it bears out until the “edge of doom”. Nevertheless, Shakespeare
attempts to counter any accusations of hyperbole in the final couplet, when he says that
if he is proven wrong, no man ever loved. Essentially, if he can be proved wrong, no
man has loved - hence they don’t know what love is. The hyperbole captures the
extremity of his views on love. While love is defined vaguely and in negative terms in
the first quatrain, the metaphors in the second stanzas help it to become more concrete.

Metaphor

Shakespeare uses a variety of metaphors to capture love’s essence. First, it is a

lighthouse and then a guiding star. These two metaphors are linked by the boat which
follows both the stars and the lighthouse. Alternatively, you could argue that the second
metaphor is a metaphor inside a metaphor: love is a lighthouse, and the lighthouse’s
light is a star that the boats follow. Through these images, Shakespeare reveals the
elevated nature of love.

Personification

Shakespeare uses this device in the sonnet to personify the concepts of "Time" and
"Love". This personification is signalled by the capitalisation of “Time” and the use of
personal pronouns “his” (lines 9 and 10). The image of the “sickle” slicing “rosy cheeks
and lips” is quite fear-inducing. Time is clearly equated with the Grim Reaper or Death.
While Shakespeare admits that love cannot prevent death, it is not “Time’s fool”. Love
endures until the very last, and this is emphasised by the elongated line, which contains
an extra syllable. The personification of love seems to make love a impersonal or
transpersonal entity. It is present in humans but ultimately a force that outlives them.

Symbolism

In the first quatrain, Shakespeare uses symbolism in the famous phrase 'marriage of
true minds'. Symbolism is the use of one object to stand in for a larger idea or concept.
Here, Shakespeare uses the common symbolism of 'mind' to not only refer to the
physical brain but to represent a person's intellect and character. Using this symbol, he
establishes the ideal marriage as one of two "true minds" and then says that love should
not change if it is between two individuals who are being honest and open with one
another.

Alliteration

The first example is in line one of the sonnet with the words "marriage" and "minds".
The second is in line two with the words "remover" and "remove". One final example is
in line ten with the words "compass" and "come".

Imagery

Particularly in the third quatrain ( time wielding a sickle that ravages beauty's rosy lips
and cheeks )

Themes

True/ Platonic Love

While many poems in the pre-1900 anthology place a large emphasis on lust and
physical intimacy, ‘Sonnet 116’ focuses on platonic love. Shakespeare portrays this
clearly in the last rhyming couplet as he argues if he is ever proved wrong about the
nature of love, then it is simply that men have not known true love. This sonnet is about
the purity of love and less about physicality. It is imagined above all as a mental union:
Poem Analysis

Begins with a negative wish Let me not to the marriage Immediately evokes the
of true minds institution or sacrament of
marriage. Yet the speaker
‘Is not’ another negative - Admit impediments. Love is suggests that the union of
defining love by what it is not love two suited minds should be
not. Shakespeare believes
true love cannot be ‘altered’ Which alters when it free to join together. At the
alteration finds, time, gay marriage would
or ‘bent’. If the lover departs have been considered
(and becomes the remover) Or bends with the remover ridiculous - sex between
true love remains, although to remove: two people of the same
it perhaps becomes gender was illegal.
tortuous. The speaker seems to
O no! it is an ever-fixed
suggest he is for the union
mark
Exclamation reveals his of any truly suited minds,
passion and reinforces the That looks on tempests and and that love need not be
negations of the first is never shaken; recognised by the law or
quatrain. the church because it is
It is the star to every primarily spiritual. This is
wandering bark, significant in light of the fact
Beginning of metaphors. that this sonnet is one of a
Whose worth’s unknown,
‘Ever fixed marke’ would series addressed to a man.
although his height be
have referred to a
taken Enjambment separates
lighthouse. Lighthouses
guide ships and withstand ‘marriage of two minds’
harrowing storms Love’s not Time’s fool, from ‘admit impediments’,
(tempests). Love therefore though rosy lips and cheeks emphasising that true love
can be a guiding light and should have no
can withstand many trials. Within his bending sickle’s impediments.
compass come:

Bark = ship. In Elizabethan Love alters not with his brief

Seemingly contradictory. In
times ships were heavily hours and weeks,
those times nobody knew
guided by the stars; allusion
But bears it out even to the what stars were made of
to love’s guiding qualities hence didn’t know their
edge of doom.
repeated. The determiner worth but used them to
‘the’ highlights the measure alignment, hence
importance of this star and
makes it singular; it is the If this be error and upon me ‘heights taken’. Perhaps
proved, Shakespeare is saying that
one aim of life. it can be measured in law
 I never writ, nor no man (‘height be taken’) but only
ever loved. lovers know what it is worth
‘Time’s’ capitalisation - to outsiders it’s worth
indicates it has been cannot be determined.
personified, specifically as
the Grim Reaper or Death,
this is enforced by ‘sickle’ a
scythe used by the grim ‘Edge of doom’ refers to the
reaper. Shakespeare is last day/ the day of
saying here that death is judgement. Shakespeare
ineluctable, hence physical states that love will endure
attributes such as ‘rosie lips until then. Huge jump from
and cheeks’ will pale under ‘hours’ and ‘weeks’, seems
‘compasses come’ - the hyperbolic.
alliteration alluding to a
clock ticking. However love Another negative, reveals
is eternal and is not ‘times the strength of his
foole’. Further return to convictions. The final,
negative definitions. standalone rhyming couplet
brings the sonnet together
and leaves the reader with
a sense of the strength and
truth of his words.

References:

https://poets.org/poet/william-shakespeare

https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/sonnets/section7/#:~:text=Essentially%2C
%20this%20sonnet%20presents%20the,then%20no%20man%20ever%20loved.

https://study.com/learn/lesson/figurative-language-sonnet-116-william-shakespeare.html

https://pmt.physicsandmathstutor.com
Review question:

1. What does Sonnet 116 present about the ideal type of love?

2. Do you agree with the poet's view of love as eternal and unchanging?

3. To whom does Sonnet 116 dedicate?

4. Why do you think the poet of Sonnet 116 uses so many negatives to make his
statement?

5. There are many different kinds of love out there, such as romantic, familial, and
platonic. Can the ideas posed in this poem apply to all of them?