This sonnet, one of Shakespeare’s most famous ones, is about an ideal, enduring and everlasting love. It celebrates the marriage between people who are truly in love (“marriage of true minds” - line 1), praising a genuine love that overcomes impediments (“Let me not ... admit impediments” – lines 1 and 2) and is able to resist adversities and turbulent moments (“looks on tempests and is never shaken” – line 6). Some commentators, without any concrete basement, state that these impediments are an allusion to the obstacles imposed against homosexual marriages. Although no church of that time permitted people from the same sex to marry, there is no evidence or elements indicating that the persona of this sonnet is addressing to a specific kind of love. In fact, the persona is referring to all genres of true and absolute love.
Sonnet 116 is made up of three quatrains and a final couplet. The first quatrain, in which the persona mentions impediments to a marriage, starts making an allusion to the famous matrimonial question asked by a clergyman in a wedding ceremony: “If anyone knows any impediment to the legitimate matrimonial union of this couple, you must confess it now!”. In the initial two lines, it is clear that the persona does not tolerate impediments to the marriage of true lovers, expressing support in favor of an eternal love that will not "alter when it alteration finds" (line 3). In the second quatrain, there is an allusion to the light that comes from a lighthouse (“ever-fixed mark” – line 5) and safely guides navigators through a storm. Love is referred as a “star” (line 7) that conduct lovers through tempests and helps them to overcome any crisis. The third quatrain is a compassionate assertion that love can prevail over one of its worst enemies, time (“Love’s not Time’s fool” – line 9), and bear difficult moments (“bending sicke’s compass” – line 10) through the years until the end of life, when it is necessary to face the judgment day (“bears it out even to the edge of doom” – line 12). In the final eloquent couplet, in order to strengthen the belief in an ideal love, the persona uses a syllogism, asserting that if his definition proves false, then he never wrote and no man ever loved (“If this be error and upon me prov’d, / I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.” – lines 13 and 14). This is a declaration that, according to Amanda Mabillard, “if he has in fact judged love inappropriately, no man has ever really loved in the ideal sense that the poet professes”.
As far as diction is concerned, Shakespeare did not exploit his typical use of complex vocabulary to convey his feelings, although intriguing, peculiar syntactic inversions are present in the sonnet. His choice for the simple present tense (admit, is, is not, alters, finds, bends, looks, come, bears) and a universal vocabulary is part of the simple rhetoric intended for this poem, which deals with a common, universal topic: love. Shakespeare used to strive for matching style (language, form, techniques) with subject, harmonizing matter with manner. “In sonnets, such as ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments’, it is by the perfect handling of some of the simplest words in the language that he makes his assertion of belief both in his subject and in his poetry” (A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies, p. 106).
Another interesting linguistic aspect in the sonnet is the recurrence of negative and opposing words (not, no, never, nor, but, although, though) in order to assure the positive value of an idealized, resistant love. These elements also intensify the emotional load of the poem, evincing his ability to manipulate terms and arguments in favor of the intention of the poem: create a romantic internal commotion on the reader.
Figurative languages were used to enhance the perception and understanding of the absolute love. Personification creates an atmosphere of proximity between the reader and the abstract conception of love (love “alters”, “bends”, “is the star”, “is an ever-fixed mark”, “is not Time”, and “bears”), imagery/synaesthesia instigates the reader’s visual senses (rosy lips and cheeks, “mark that looks on tempests”), and the interjection “O no!” (line 5) establishes a personal contact with the reader.
Sonority is also a very strong stylistic resource in Shakespeare’s sonnets. In sonnet 116, the repetition of the same or similar words (“love is not love”, “alters when in alteration finds”, “remover to remove”) reproduces a sense of echo. Other language figures, such as alliteration using nasal sounds (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”, “I never writ, nor no man”), assonance with the vowel “i” (“though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle’s compass”, “with his brief hours and weeks”), and consonance with the sibilant phoneme “s” (“finds, or bends”, “looks on tempests and is never shaken”, “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks”, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks”) help to enhance the sonorous effect of the poem.
The rhythmic pattern in this sonnet is established by the elaborated 10-syllable-lines written in iambic pentameter (e.g. “It is / the star / to e/very wan/d’ring bark”), while musicality is reinforced by the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg, made up of both perfect (minds-finds, mark-bark, shaken-taken, cheeks-weeks) and imperfect rhymes (love-remove, come-doom, prov’d-lov’d), as well as both masculine (e.g. prov’d-lov’d, mark-bark, cheeks-weeks) and feminine (e.g. shaken-taken) rhymes.
All these elements, characteristics, structures, and techniques (sonority, meter, rhythm, rhymes, figurative language, diction, rhetoric) lead to a perfect flow in the reading process and understanding of the sonnet 116. Although Shakespeare’s works “become more remote in time and they stand more in need of explanation and interpretation” (A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies, p 260), this sonnet will keep on nurturing romance and inspiring people through the years as it deals with a simple and universal theme that will never become outmoded: a legitimate endless love.
Shakespeare’s unique skills to portray and analyze the human condition in a meticulous, deep approach has established him as a genius in the literary and even linguistic fields. He produced several masterpieces that have been intriguing, along the years, researchers and critics, who have become amazed when they get in touch with all of Shakespeare’s literary production, wondering how could a man be able to master the proficiency in the writing process and keep this standard in all his works. The writing process for Shakespeare, however, was not an enigma. For him, poets are merely creatures who possess a talent to give names, through writing, to things that are obscure for most people:
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of thing unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream v, i, 12-17)
William Shakespeare indeed possessed this talent and used it to both touch and entertain people, creating his unequaled style and production, which will keep on being worshiped as long as humanity exits.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- 1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.
- MABILLARD, Amanda. "An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116". Shakespeare Online. 2000. http://www.shakespeare-online.com (01/02/04).
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MUIR, Kenneth; SCHOENBAUM, S.. “A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies”. Cambridge Univesity Press, 1971.
- www.albionmich.com/valentine.html (01/02/04).
- www.shakespeares-sonnets.com (01/02/04).