Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 116 by William Note the following:

Shakespeare  Metaphor - love is an ever-fixèd mark and also

Updated on January 23, 2017 love is the star.
Andrew Spacey  in line five the words ever-fixèd mark - fixed is
more pronounced fix-ed, two syllables.
 in line six the word tempest which means a
Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of violent storm.
poetry and writes extensively on the  in line seven the word bark which means ship.
subject. His poems are published online
 in line ten the bending sickle's compass refers
and in print.
to the sharp metal curved tool used for harvesting,
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that cuts off the head of ripe cereal with a circular
swipe or swing. Similar to the scythe used by the
William Shakespeare | Source
Grim Reaper.
William Shakespeare and Sonnet 116
Further Analysis
Sonnet 116 is one of William Shakespeare's most well
Sonnet 116 is an attempt by Shakespeare to persuade the
known and features the opening line that is all too quotable
reader of the indestructible qualities of true love, which
- Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit
never changes, and is immeasurable.
impediments. It goes on to declare that true love is no fool
But what sort of love are we talking about? Romantic love
of time, it never alters.
most probably, although this sonnet could be applied to
Shakespeare's 154 sonnets were first published as an entity
Eros, Philos or Agape - erotic love, platonic love or universal
in 1609 and focus on the nature of love, in relationships and
love.
in relation to time. The first seventeen are addressed to a
Shakespeare uses the imperative Let me not to begin his
young man, the rest to a woman known as the 'Dark Lady',
persuasive tactics and he continues by using negation with
but there is no historical evidence to suggest that such
that little word not appearing four times. It's as if he's
people ever existed in Shakespeare's life.
uncertain about this concept of love and needs to state
The sonnets form a unique outpouring of poetic expression
what it is NOT to make valid his point.
devoted to the machinations of mind and heart. They
So love does not alter or change if circumstances around it
encompass a vast range of emotion and use all manner of
change. If physical, mental or spiritual change does come,
device to explore what it means to love and be loved.
love remains the same, steadfast and true.
Sonnet 116 sets out to define true love by firstly telling the
If life is a journey, if we're all at sea, if our boat gets rocked
reader what love is not. It then continues on to the end
in a violent storm we can't control, love is there to direct us,
couplet, the speaker (the poet) declaring that if what he has
like a lighthouse with a fixed beam, guiding us safely home.
proposed is false, his writing is futile and no man has ever
Or metaphorically speaking love is a fixed star that can
experienced love.
direct us should we go astray.
And, unlike beauty, love is not bound to time, it isn't a
Sonnet 116
victim or subject to the effects of time. Love transcends the
hours, the weeks, any measurement, and will defy it right to
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
the end, until Judgement Day.
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Lines nine and ten are special for the arrangement of hard
Which alters when it alteration finds,
and soft consonants, illiteration and enjambment:
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
Love is not harvested by time's sharp edge, it endures. Love
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
conquers all, as Virgil said in his Eclogue. And if the reader
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
has no faith in the writer's argument, then what use the
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
words, and what good is the human experience of being in
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, love?
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.
Analysis

Sonnet 116 has fourteen lines and a rhyme

scheme ababcdcdefefgg - three quatrains and a couplet.
Most end rhymes are full except for lines 2 and
4: love/remove, 10 and 12: come/doom and 13 and
14: proved/loved. But don't forget, in Shakespeare's time
some of these words may have had the same
pronunciation.
The first twelve lines build to a climax, asserting what love
is by stating what it is not. The last two lines introduce us to
the first person speaker, who suggests to the reader that if
all the aforementioned 'proofs' concerning love are invalid,
then what's the point of his writing and what man has ever
fallen in love.
Iambic pentameter predominates - ten syllables, five beats
per line - but there are exceptions in lines six, eight and
twelve, where an extra beat at the end softens the
emphasis in the first two and strengthens it in the latter.

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