A Critical Analysis Of Sonnet 116 English Literature Essay

Love is an emotion which all of us have a construct of, so many of us may even claim to hold experienced what we would hold to be true love. However, does such a pure degree of this emotion really exist, and if it does are we as human existences able to specify it? This is something that is examined by William Shakespeare in ‘Sonnet 116 ‘ .

Shakespeare adheres to the traditions of the sonnet strictly within ‘Sonnet 116 ‘ , as it consists of 14 lines in entire, with each line dwelling itself of 10 syllables. It besides follows a regular emphasis form.

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The sonnet opens with a line of announcement, declaring that it is non the purpose of the voice to forestall the ‘marriage of true heads ‘[ 1 ]. In kernel the voice is pre-empting what is to follow in which the voice lineations their authorization of what true love really is. This is something that is quantified by the undermentioned statement, ‘love is non love / Which alters when it alteration discoveries ‘ ( 116 l.3 ) ; this outlines the voice ‘s chief thesis that true love is firm and unchanging, it is non something that wavers or decompression sicknesss in the face of outside influences. However it is non merely the influences of the outside universe that are unable to consequence it, as the voice goes on to province that it does non ‘bends with the remover to take. ‘ ( 116 l.4 ) , intending that even when the object of the object of the fondness itself is removed the love for that object or individual remains. Indeed the voice continues with this averment of true love as a lasting fixture by stating ‘is is an ever-fixed grade ‘ ( 116 l.5 ) . The comparing of love as a ‘mark ‘ ( 116 l.5 ) is an interesting one as a grade can be interpreted as a defect or so even as a signifier of malformation. William Blake uses the word as a identifier of negativeness in his verse form ‘London ‘ , saying that the people that are shown in the verse form exhibit ‘Marks of failing, Markss of suffering. ‘[ 2 ]. Shakespeare nevertheless asserts that a individual ‘s personality and witting can besides be marked with a positive emotion, hence change by reversaling the consequence of the word ‘mark ‘ ( 116 l.5 ) from one of negative malformation to one of a positive identifier.

Shakespeare draws comparings between true love and nature as he compares it to a ‘star ‘ ( 116 l.7 ) that guides ‘every wand’ring bark ‘ ( 116 l.7 ) . This comparing is interesting on two degrees, the first being that Shakespeare appears to hold shown careful consideration in his pick of a star as the point of comparing with true love, in that a star is one of the brightest illustrations of beauty found in the natural universe, therefore pulling acceptance to his description of love as a reflecting beacon for the ‘wand’ring ‘ ( 116 l.7 ) psyche of the universe. This subject of love being a symbolical beacon of counsel and shelter is something that is found elsewhere in literature, Tennyson does so in his verse form ‘Break, interruption, interruption ‘ , when he remarks on ‘stately ships ‘[ 3 ]withdrawing to ‘their haven under the hill ‘ ( Bre l.10 ) . It besides works more significantly on the footing that a star is a heavenly organic structure giving true love an about heavenly and other worldly quality. The following line reaffirms the thought of true love as a cryptic and other worldly entity. As it is stated that it defies any effort to decode it ‘s material value. This despite the fact that it is a thing of worth and so substance as its ‘height ‘ ( 116 l.8 ) can ‘be taken ‘ ( 116 l.8 ) .

True love besides appears to show belongingss that allow it to hedge one of the chief restraints of the adult male made universe, clip. This is exhibited in the undermentioned line, ‘Love ‘s non Time ‘s sap ‘ ( 116 l.9 ) . This is an of import factor to see, as clip is something that all of world regardless of position or beliefs will finally fall victim to, our organic structures, visual aspect and even our heads will disintegrate over clip until we will finally subject to clip wholly in our decease, ‘though rose-colored lips and cheeks / Within his flexing reaping hook ‘s compass semen ‘ ( 116 l.9 & A ; 10 ) . True love nevertheless is non constrained by such bonds, ‘Love alters non with his brief hours and hebdomads, / But bears it out even to the border of day of reckoning. ‘ ( 116 l.11 & A ; 12 ) . This is possibly the ultimate avowal of the power of true love, in that it possesses the ability to populate for infinity, something that adult male can merely woolgather of.

The concluding two lines sees Shakespeare topographic point his statement on what true love is in a place beyond reproach. In which he states that if any of what he has said ‘be mistake ‘ ( 116 l.13 ) , so he ‘never writ, nor no adult male of all time loved. ‘ ( 116 l.14 ) . This statement provides Shakespeare an unbreakable get out clause, in that if any of the sonnet is proved to be untrue or differ with so non merely does he deny any answerability of holding written those untrue statements but besides affirms that no adult male has of all time experienced love, hence puting the accuser in a place of failing as they would be knocking his work without the foundation of experience. This possibly shows itself to be a graphic illustration of how firmly Shakespeare believed what he had written. In that by infixing the concluding two lines in the mode that he did he made the statement put frontward by the sonnet perfect and blameless to any effort to botch it from adult male or the outside universe, much in the same manner that he argued that love itself was.

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