The Marriage Of True Minds

Question 1

What are the possible interpretations of the term.

‘Admit impediments’

Answer 1

• References the religious ceremony of marriage

- Implies that nothing will stand in the way

Question 2

‘O no! It is an ever-fixed mark’

What does this suggest?

Answer 2

Permanent

Question 3

‘That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,’
What is suggested by ‘never shaken’
Explain the link between ‘tempests’ and ‘star’

Answer 3

NEVER SHAKEN - unwavering, strong love
Suggests that love is the star which guides lost ships through stormy seas - love is what anchors us to one another in times of struggle

Question 4

‘Love’s not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks’
What is suggested about love by the phrase ‘times fool’?
What do we learn about love by the phrase ‘rosy lips and cheeks’?

Answer 4

LOVES NOT TIMES FOOL - love is timeless

ROSY LIPS AND CHEEKS - although beauty may fade, love is everlasting

Question 5

‘Within his bending sickles compass come:’

What is the significance of the words ‘sickle’ and what does it suggest?

Answer 5

The bending sickle that swings refers to the scythe that is traditionally pictured along side the Grim Reaper
perhaps indicating that even death won’t end their never fading love

Question 6

‘But bears it out even to the edge of doom’
What does this suggest?
Link?

Answer 6

Love is everlasting, until death…
Links to the ideas explored several lines before, ‘within his bending sickles compass come’ - death will not pull us apart

Question 7

‘If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man loved’
What does this final couplet suggest about love?

Answer 7

Shakespeare is saying that if any man can prove this wrong, then no one has ever experienced love

Question 8

What does Shakespeare suggest about love throughout the poem?

Answer 8

• Love is unchanging and cannot be used to change one another
• It is whole and accepting
• It is never faltering and guides us trough life
• Love never fades

Question 9

What style of poem is this?

Answer 9

It is a sonnet
14 lines
Set rhyming scheme (ABABCDCDEFEFGG)
Consists of three quatrains and a couplet

Question 10

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’
What is suggested by..
- Marriage
- True minds

Answer 10

MARRIAGE - a metaphor for understanding each other fully

TRUE MINDS - equal to one another

Question 11

‘Marriage of true minds’

Why does Shakespeare say minds?

Answer 11

To communicate the fact that their love is deep, on a number of different levels

Question 12

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.’
What technique is used here and why?

Answer 12

Enjambement is used to physically separate the idea of obstructions to their love from the marriage of true minds

Question 13

‘Or bends with the remover to remove’

What does this suggest?

Answer 13

Love does not give in or despair when faced with difficulties or adversity. Love will always survive.

Question 14

‘O no! It is an ever-fixed mark!’

What does the ‘O no!’ suggest?

Answer 14

Brings a shift in tone as the write moves from explain the negatives of what love is not, to the positives of what love it

Question 15

What is referred to by ‘ever-fixed mark’?

Answer 15

A star that never changes it’s position in the sky, it is always there to guide us

Question 16

‘Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken’

What does this mean?

Answer 16

In the Elizabethan period, stars were used to navigate, though humanity hadn’t yet discovered what they were made of, which is why their worth is not known.
The second part suggests that, although we don’t know what stars are made of, we know their distance from us, or their ‘height’

Question 17

‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks’

What does this tell us about love

Answer 17

It endures the passing of time, which is depicted as fleeting and ‘brief’