William Shakespeare

1
William Shakespeare

• Sonnet 116

2
What is the poet saying?

• Quatrain 1
• Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit
  impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when
  it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to
  remove.

3
Quatrain 1

• Metaphor
• Comparing love to the marriage of true minds
• This marriage will not and cannot admit to
  impediments or flaws.

4
Quatrain 1

• Definition of love
• Defined in the negative
• Love is not love
• Love doesnt alter or bend when things oppose it.

5
Quatrain 2

• Oh no! It is an ever-fixéd markThat looks on
  tempests and is never shaken.It is the star to
  every wandering bark,Whose worths unknown,
  although his height be taken.

6
Quatrain 2

• Metaphor
• Comparing love to the ever-fixed mark
• A prominent object on shore that serves as a
  guide to sailors
• Comparing love to the star to every wandering
  bark
• The North Star
• Never changing
• Constant

7
Quatrain 3

• Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and
  cheeksWithin his bending sickles compass
  come.Love alters not with his brief hours and
  weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of
  doom.

8
Quatrain 3

• Consistency and unbending nature of love
• Love is a constant
• It is influenced by nothing, even death
• Times fool
• Personification
• Death

9
Couplet

• If this be error and upon me proved,I never
  writ, nor no man ever loved.
• Turn occurs after line 13.
• If the poet is wrong about his definition of
  love, then he has never written and no one has
  ever loved.

10
How does he go about saying it?

• Poetic Devices
• Shakespearean Sonnet
• Rhyme Scheme
• abab cdcd efef gg
• 3 quatrains and 1 couplet

11
Meter

• ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• Oh no! It is an ever fixéd mark
• Iambic Pentameter

12
Metaphor

• Comparing love to things that remain constant
• Seamark
• North Star

13
Imagery

• Nautical Imagery
• ever-fixed mark
• tempests
• wandering bark
• star
• his height be taken

14
Personification

• Loves not Times fool/within his bending
  sickles compass come (9-10)
• Time is personified as the grim reaper