Sonnet 116

Question 1

Who wrote this poem

Answer 1

William Shakespeare

Question 2

What figure of speech can be found in the sentence
‘sickle compass come’ and the meaning

Answer 2

consonance of the hard plosive k. Associates personified time with death and enables the reader to hear the cutting action of the sickle

Question 3

How is ideal love and time presented in the poem

Answer 3

ideal love is able to transcend the limitations of both time and death. Time is presented as capable of cutting short the beauty of youth but true love survives this.

Question 4

What form is the poem written in? and describe it

Answer 4

Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet

Question 5

What is the meter used in the poem?

Answer 5

Iambic pentameter

Question 6

What is the rhyme scheme for

Answer 6

abab cdcd efef gg

Question 7

What are the key themes explored in this poem

Answer 7

• Ideal love
• Love and time/ enduring love

Question 8

What quotations are similar in the great Gatsby and in this poem

Answer 8

‘It is the star to every wandering barke’
‘I… distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away’ Chapter 1

‘Lov’s not time’s fool’
‘Can’t repeat the past? why, of course you can’ chapter 6

Question 9

marke, star and barke are semantic fields of what?

Answer 9

Sailing

Question 10

Marriage, rosy lips and cheeks are semantic fields of what?

Answer 10

love

Question 11

What is the significance of the use of enjambement in lines 1 and 2

Answer 11

separates admit impediments from the marriage of true minds showing that the former can have nothing to do with the latter

Question 12

What is the significance of the use of caesura after impediments e.g ‘impediments, love is not love’

Answer 12

renders the point more forceful at the same time gives a sense of how those impediments would if admitted, abruptly terminate the flow of love

Question 13

What is the significance of the couplet at the end of the poem

Answer 13

• puts his reputation as a writer on the line to demonstrate the strength of his conviction
• The couplet is divorced from the main content of the three quatrains so it renders the argument too abstract to be applicable to everyday reality

Question 14

What time period was the poem written

Answer 14

Late 16th Century

Question 15

What are the similarities and differences between Sonnet 116 and La belle dame sans Merci

Answer 15

Similarities
• Love inalterable

Differences
• Keats creates a story while Shakespeare has a short sonnet
• La belle contains distress while sonnet 116 is perfect
• Sonnet 116 presents love as spiritual while la belle presents love as erotically
• The knight in la belle is infatuated while Shakespeare describes perfect love and not infatuation

Question 16

What figure of speech is used in the following sentence and what is its significance.

“Times fool”

Answer 16

• Personification
• Shows that love is impersonal or a trans personal entity that is present in humans but a force that outlives them

Question 17

What are the similarities and differences between sonnet 116 and Ae fond kids

Answer 17

Similarities
• Represents true and pure love
• Societal barriers and limitations to love
• Idealised love
• “ star of hope”- AFK, “star to every wandering bark”- sonnet 116

Differences
• Burns is saying goodbye while Shakespeare believes goodby doesn’t exist as true love lives on
• Sonnet 116 is a general reflection on love whereas AFK is a particular account of a love affair

Question 18

How does Shakespeare critique the institution of marriage?

Answer 18

• The sonnet invokes the sacrament/ institution of marriage, love is the marriage or union of two minds, their compatibility is what matters whether it is enshrined in the law.

Question 19

What does the clear and calm tones at the beginning of the poem reflect?

Answer 19

Reflects the unchanging nature of the poem

Question 20

What is the significance of the irregularity of the meter in the poem?

Answer 20

Irregularity of the meter in the first lines is illustrative of how love itself has some rocky parts but smooths out and conforms clearly to the sonnet form