Sonnet 116 shakespeare

Question 1

whats the significance of this poem

Answer 1

one of shakespeares best known love sonnets , popular choice for reading at wedding ceremonies
- thought to be an autobiographical poem

Question 2

what is a sonnet

Answer 2

14 lines , each being 10 syllables long. poem which expresses a thought or idea and develops it, often cleverly and wittily. often about ideals or hypothetical situations . It reaches back to the Medieval Romances, where a woman is loved and idealised by a worshipping admirer.

Question 3

whats the language and rhyme scheme used in sonnet 116

Answer 3

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
iambic pentameter ( 5 stressed and unstressed )The effect is stately and rhythmic, and conveys an impression of dignity and seriousness. Shakespeare’s sonnets follow this pattern.
- quatrain + rhyming couplet. typical of Shakespeare’s compositions. For contemporary readers today not all the rhymes are perfect because of changed pronunciation, but in Shakespeare’s time they would probably have rhymed perfectly

Question 4

“let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impendiments”

Answer 4

religious allusion . common book of prayer ( god reference is removed ) spiritual union, rather than physical one. no objectivisation of either gender;no genderisation ( links to theme of forbiddan love )
criticising marriage services of the elizabethan england
the poetic device used throughout; metonymy, where one thing stands for another. So, it isn’t the “true minds” that are married but the people with true minds.
syntax of the first three lines is unexpected, not as normally spoken and written, and are reminiscent of the lines of a marriage service. Impediment is lifted from the official Church of England wedding service,
This syntax is known as inversion or anastrophe. The purpose is to make the listener pay attention because it is different; or to build tension and suspense in anticipation of the main clause and the delayed verb.

Question 5

“love is not love”

Answer 5

appearence vs reality, love isnt what it seems , emotions that transcends standard definition

Question 6

“which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove “

Answer 6

love doesnt change
notion of immutability
rhythmic effect in lines 2 and 3 created by this repetition. The device is known as a chiasmus. In doing this, he highlights the contrast between enduring love and altered love.
Shakespeare was a master of this song-like effect, where an idea is compared to its opposite. Note, for example, in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’: “… other women cloy/ The appetites they feed but she makes hungry/ Where most she satisfies…”; here it is a contrast between repleteness and hunger