Let Me Not contains a regular rhyming pattern (ABABCDCD…) although the rhyming does not really flow. There is a great deal of hyperbole in the poem, which Shakespeare uses to keep the poem going from the start to the finish. The poem gives us Shakespeare’s idea of the characteristics of a forever lasting love between any two people. The poem contains very little personification and is directed at no one in particular.
Shakespeare used his own technique when writing sonnets. He would split the poem into three quatrains and then ended with a rhyming couplet. Each quatrain added a little more to the poem, the first quatrain introduced the idea, the second quatrain develops the argument and/or gives an example, the third quatrain concludes the idea and the rhyming couplet summarises or completely turns around the idea. In Let me not the first quatrain;
“Let me not to the marriage of true mindes
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findes,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
This introduces Shakespeare’s idea that true love always lasts and does whatever it needs to last. It states that if you allow imperfections then it is not real love. This first quatrain introduces the poem and gives you something to think about. The second quatrain;
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That lookes on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandring barke
Whose worths unknowne, although his higth be taken.
In this second quatrain Shakespeare develops his idea by saying love is an “ever fixed mark” which cannot be broken by “tempests” or problems in relationships. Then he gives the example that love is “the star to every wandering barke, whose worths unknowne, although his higth be taken ” here he says that love guides the way for everyone but sometimes it is not always appreciated although it is obvious how important love is. The third quatrain next summarises this idea;
Lov’s not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compasse come,
Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes
But bears it out even to the edge of doome:
Shakespeare here summarises his idea that with love its about more than looks and that even with time and change love does not alter at all. Shakespeare ends the poem with
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Shakespeare states that if he is proved wrong, then that would mean he never wrote anything and that no man has ever loved. Obviously this is ridiculous as Shakespeare did write and men do love. So Shakespeare uses this rhyming couplet to prove his point, saying that it is impossible to prove him wrong because he is right. This is how Shakespeare uses the theme love, but Robert Browning approaches the theme love in a much more dark and confusing way. In Pophyria’s Lover browning uses love as an excuse for a murder.
