Sonnet 116

• Sonnet 116


  A traditional love poem by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet


  • A 14-line single stanza poem that discusses love
• William Shakespeare: 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments'
• The speaker says


  There is no reason why two people in love should not be together or marry
• Rhyme scheme


  • ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
• If love can change


  It is not true, authentic love
• If love is fickle enough to bend or change


  It is not real love
• Metaphor: "it's never fixed mark"


  Love should be constant like a lighthouse in a raging storm
• Metaphor: "a star to every wandering bark"


  Love should be a guiding light for lovers, like a north star for ships
• Love


  Should not be full of time, should not be changed or manipulated by time
• Even if lovers get old, frail and lose their beauty

  Love should still stay constant
• Even after death


  Love should still last
• The speaker states that if he is wrong about his assumptions on love, then no one has ever truly loved
• Shakespeare himself was famously known to be unhappily married to his wife Anne Hathaway