William Shakespeare
- Submitted by: kseniyakovaleva
- Views: 440
- Category: English: Shakespeare
- Date Submitted: 04/05/2013 09:15 AM
- Pages: 15
- Report this Essay
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
116
Let me not to the marrige of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
0, 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.
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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Analysis
Overview
Sonnet 116 is one of Shakespeare's most famous love sonnets, but some scholars have argued the theme has been misunderstood. Hilton Landry believes the appreciation of 116 as a celebration of true love is mistaken, in part because its context in the sequence of adjacent sonnets is not properly considered. Landry acknowledges the sonnet “has the grandeur of generality or a “universal significance,” but cautions that “however timeless and universal its implications may be, we must never forget that Sonnet 116 has a restricted or particular range of meaning simply because it does not stand alone.” Carol Thomas Neely writes that, “Sonnet 116 is part of a sequence which is separate from all the other sonnets of Shakespeare because of their sense of detachment. They aren’t about the action of love and the object of that love is removed in this sequence which consists of Sonnets 94, 116, and 129” This group of three sonnets doesn’t fit the mold of the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets, therefore. They defy the typical concept and give a different perspective of what love is and how it is portrayed or experienced. “Though 116 resolves no issues, the poet in this part of the sequence acknowledges and accepts the fallibility of his love...
116
Let me not to the marrige of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
0, 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.
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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Analysis
Overview
Sonnet 116 is one of Shakespeare's most famous love sonnets, but some scholars have argued the theme has been misunderstood. Hilton Landry believes the appreciation of 116 as a celebration of true love is mistaken, in part because its context in the sequence of adjacent sonnets is not properly considered. Landry acknowledges the sonnet “has the grandeur of generality or a “universal significance,” but cautions that “however timeless and universal its implications may be, we must never forget that Sonnet 116 has a restricted or particular range of meaning simply because it does not stand alone.” Carol Thomas Neely writes that, “Sonnet 116 is part of a sequence which is separate from all the other sonnets of Shakespeare because of their sense of detachment. They aren’t about the action of love and the object of that love is removed in this sequence which consists of Sonnets 94, 116, and 129” This group of three sonnets doesn’t fit the mold of the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets, therefore. They defy the typical concept and give a different perspective of what love is and how it is portrayed or experienced. “Though 116 resolves no issues, the poet in this part of the sequence acknowledges and accepts the fallibility of his love...