Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare Flashcards

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1
Q

Meaning

A
  • Attempts to explain & define true love
  • Requirements of ‘perfect’ love become increasingly difficult to express/achieve during course of poem
  • Leaves reader wondering if true love is something we can ever attain in real world

OR

  • Explore platonic love OR sexual love
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2
Q

Context

A
  • Wrote 126 sonnets to young male friend: Henry Wriothesley
    • One of Shakespeare’s patrons (wealthy supporter)
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3
Q

Imagery #1

A

“It is the star to every wandering bark,”

  • “star”
    • Polestar
      • Love stays in same place ∴ everyone focuses on it
      • Helps salior to navigate ∴ love is guide in life = helps when off course
    • “worth’s unknown” = invaluable
      • Cannot fully know love or appreciate wholly
  • “wandering bark” = ship
    • Isolated & alone without love
    • Lots of naval imagery
      • Associated with homosexuality = sexual love
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4
Q

Imagery #2

A

“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks”

  • Personification of love as eternal, everlasting force
    • Resists death = immortality of love
  • True love will not diminish even when Beloved is no longer beautiful and young
  • Personfication
    • Time = Death in form of the Grim Reaper
      • Love is not defeated or changed by death
  • Enjambent
    • Love is everlasting even after death
  • Hard & soft consonants
    • Ups and downs of love
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5
Q

Tone #1

A

Emphatic, romantic tone

“O no, it is an ever-fixed mark”

  • “O”
    • Shakespeare really pushing himself to make sense of concept of love
  • Metaphor - “mark”
    • True love does not change even if the circumstances around it do
    • OR means love as stain, cannot be washed out
      • Brands you forever
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6
Q

Tone #2

A

Assertive, legalese tone: volta comes in rhyming couplet

“proved” and “loved”

  • Half rhyme: defines beauty of love with deformed and misshapen couplet
    • People coming together in perfect union = deconstructed in this rhyme
      • ∴ If couplet explaining love cannot reach harmony and perfection = humans can’t reach Shakespeare’s standards of love
    • OR stating that true love is not perfect
      • i.e. Partners in relationship not always in agreement + harmonise
      • OR allude to idea at the time man + woman were only couple possible, harmonise
        • By half rhyme = True love doesn’t necessarily always occur between just men and women
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7
Q

Structure

A

Sonnet

  • Traditionally: About love (from man to woman)
    • Uses sonnet in playful way to show platonic or romantic/sexual love
      • Towards a man = Henry Wriothesley
  • Iambic pentameter
    • Uses strict restrictions = create idealistic true love?
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8
Q

Comparison 3x

A
  • ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’
  • ‘My Last Duchess’
  • ‘Remember’
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9
Q

‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ Comparison

A

Describes unhealthy love in which is emasculated by Beloved

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10
Q

‘My Last Duchess’ Comparison

A
  • Contrasting view of love
    • Poem describers a love that changes with sinister consequences
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11
Q

‘Remember’ Comparison

A

Also sonnet about love which challenges traditional subject matter & poetic voice of the form

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