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William Shakespeare – Sonnet 116 / Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds (Poem Summary) – EnglishEClasses

Summary of the Poem 'Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds' is one of the famous sonnets of Shakespeare and is addressed to an unnamed young friend of the poet called 'Mr. W. H.' This sonnet is in a perfect Shakespearean form with three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. It's rhyme scheme is…

William Shakespeare – Sonnet 116 / Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds (Poem Summary)

EnglishEClasses British English Literature, English Literature, Poem Summary, Practice Questions (Descriptive), William Shakespeare

September 8, 2020 11 Minutes

Summary of the Poem

‘Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds’ is one of the famous sonnets of Shakespeare and is addressed to an unnamed young friend of the poet called ‘Mr. W. H.’ This sonnet is in a perfect Shakespearean form with three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. It’s rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

In this sonnet Shakespeare delineates the great qualities of true love. The poet has explained true love in a very free way. Ex-pressing his faith in the power of true love, the poet says that there can be no obstacles in the union of true lovers. True love is unchanging. It never changes even when there is a chance of change. It does not submit to the power of its annihilator. In other words the poet declares it unparalleled quality of constancy and steadfastness. True love never yields before anybody.

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The theme of the poem is fully developed by comparing the everlasting nature of true love to the sun and North star (Pole Star) which is to remain constant and guide the wandering ships in the uncharted ocean. In the same way true love also does not yield before the difficulties of life and guide lovers in their life. True love is permanent and fixed like the sun and the pole star in the universe.

According to Shakespeare time is a universal destroyer which destroys everything but it has no effect on true love. He compares time to a farmer. A farmer reaps crops with his sickle. In the same way time destroys the physical beauty of a person. It can finish the rosy lips and cheeks of a lady. But true love does not come in the range of time’s sickle. It does not change with the passage of time. The depth of love, like full worth and potentialities of the guiding star can never be completely known. The North Star and ideal love are both beyond human estimation. They are too high to be measured. True love or the spiritual love is not at all affected by death, decay and destruction caused by the passage of time. On the other hand, it remains constant even to the dreadful day of judgment.

In the end the poet makes a claim. He asserts that if any body can prove him wrong, he will admit that he is neither a poet nor has anybody ever loved in this world. To conclude, it can be said that the theme of this sonnet has been beautifully and effectively developed. True love is constant, immortal and a source of guidance to the lovers in life.

Reference to the ContextStanza 1

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

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These lines quoted above have been taken from the poem ‘Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds‘ written by William Shakespeare. In this poem, the poet gives the definition of true love. He says that true love is fixed and eternal. The poem is a beautiful love sonnet. These are the opening lines.

In these lines William Shakespeare says that there cannot be any obstacle in the union of minds of the persons who are true to each other. Here, in these lines, ‘marriage’ is signifying union, friendship and understanding. It is the marriage of true minds and not to the marriage of bodies. In other words this marriage of two true minds is true love and this true love never changes with the passage of time and circumstances. That love is not true love which changes when it finds a chance to change. True love or the spiritual love does not submit to the power of its annihilator. Here in these lines the poet gives the idea of the genuine love which never changes and never yields. It always remains permanent.

Stanza 2

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

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These lines quoted above have been taken from the poem ‘Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds’ written by William Shakespeare. In these lines the poet gives the qualities of true love. He says that there can be no external barriers in the way of the union of true lovers. There love is constant like a light house and the Pole star. It guides lovers as the Pole star guides the wandering ships. It is permanent and immortal.

In these lines, the poet asserts that true love is constant and firm. He compares true love to a light house and the Pole star. As the light house in constant, It faces storms in the sea and is never shaken, in the same way true love is not shaken by the difficulties and problems of life. The Pole star serves as infallible guides to the ships in the uncharted ocean. True love also guides lovers in life. The depth of true love, like full value and potentialities of the guiding star can never be completely acknowledged. The Pole star and ideal love are both beyond human estimation. They are true height to be measured. In other words we cannot measure the real influence of love on human life.

Stanza 3

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

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

स्रोत : englisheclasses.com

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Sonnet 116 Summary & Analysis

A summary of Sonnet 116 in William Shakespeare's Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets William Shakespeare

Study Guide Summary

Sonnet 116

Summary Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken

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

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Summary: Sonnet 116

This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In the first quatrain, the speaker says that love—”the marriage of true minds”—is perfect and unchanging; it does not “admit impediments,” and it does not change when it find changes in the loved one. In the second quatrain, the speaker tells what love is through a metaphor: a guiding star to lost ships (“wand’ring barks”) that is not susceptible to storms (it “looks on tempests and is never shaken”). In the third quatrain, the speaker again describes what love is not: it is not susceptible to time. Though beauty fades in time as rosy lips and cheeks come within “his bending sickle’s compass,” love does not change with hours and weeks: instead, it “bears it out ev’n to the edge of doom.” In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that love is as he says: if his statements can be proved to be error, he declares, he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love.

Read a translation of Sonnet 116

Analysis

Along with Sonnets 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous poems in the entire sequence. The definition of love that it provides is among the most often quoted and anthologized in the poetic canon. Essentially, this sonnet presents the extreme ideal of romantic love: it never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw. What is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”—if love is mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no man loved. The basic division of this poem’s argument into the various parts of the sonnet form is extremely simple: the first quatrain says what love is not (changeable), the second quatrain says what it is (a fixed guiding star unshaken by tempests), the third quatrain says more specifically what it is not (“time’s fool”—that is, subject to change in the passage of time), and the couplet announces the speaker’s certainty. What gives this poem its rhetorical and emotional power is not its complexity; rather, it is the force of its linguistic and emotional conviction.

Read more about the different types of romantic love as a theme.

The language of Sonnet 116 is not remarkable for its imagery or metaphoric range. In fact, its imagery, particularly in the third quatrain (time wielding a sickle that ravages beauty’s rosy lips and cheeks), is rather standard within the sonnets, and its major metaphor (love as a guiding star) is hardly startling in its originality. But the language extraordinary in that it frames its discussion of the passion of love within a very restrained, very intensely disciplined rhetorical structure. With a masterful control of rhythm and variation of tone—the heavy balance of “Love’s not time’s fool” to open the third quatrain; the declamatory “O no” to begin the second—the speaker makes an almost legalistic argument for the eternal passion of love, and the result is that the passion seems stronger and more urgent for the restraint in the speaker’s tone.

Read more about stars as a symbol.

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Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage...

In 'Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds,' Shakespare's speaker is ruminating on love.

In total, it is believed that Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, in addition to the thirty-seven plays that are also attributed to him. Many believe Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to two different people he may have known.

The first 126 sonnets seem to be speaking to a young man with whom Shakespeare was very close. As a result of this, much has been speculated about The Bard’s sexuality; it is to this young man that Sonnet 116 is addressed. The other sonnets Shakespeare wrote are written to a mysterious woman whose identity is unknown. Scholars have referred to her simply as the Dark Woman and must have been written about her identity.

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Sonnet 116

William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Explore Sonnet 116

1 Summary 2 Themes

3 Historical Background

4 Structure and Form

5 Literary Devices 6 Detailed Analysis 7 Similar Poetry

Summary

In ‘Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds,’ Shakespeare’s speaker is ruminating on love. He says that love never changes, and if it does, it was not true or real in the first place.

He compares love to a star that is always seen and never changing. It is real and permanent, and it is something on which a person can count. Even though the people in love may change as time passes, their love will not. The speaker closes by saying that no man has ever truly loved before if he is wrong about this.

Themes

Shakespeare used some of his most familiar themes in ‘Sonnet 116’. These include time, love, and the nature of relationships. In the fourteen lines of this sonnet, he delves into what true love is and whether or not it’s real. He uses a metaphor to compare love to a star that’s always present and never changes. He is so confident in this opinion that he asserts no man has ever loved before if he’s wrong. Shakespeare also brings elements of time into the poem. He emphasizes the fact that time knows no boundaries, and even if the people in the relationship change, the love doesn’t.

Historical Background

Many believe the mysterious young man for whom this and many other of Shakespeare’s sonnets were written was the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesly. Wriothesly was Shakespeare’s patron, and The Bard’s Venus and Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece were both dedicated to the young man.

Structure and Form

This is a true Shakespearean sonnet, also referred to as an Elizabethan or English sonnet. This type of sonnet contains fourteen lines, which are separated into three quatrains (four lines) and end with a rhyming couplet (two lines). The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. Like most of Shakespeare’s works, this sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, which means each line consists of ten syllables, and within those ten syllables, there are five pairs, which are called iambs (one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable).

Literary Devices

Shakespeare makes use of several literary devices in ‘Sonnet 116,’ these include but are not limited to alliteration, examples of caesurae, and personification. The first, alliteration, is concerned with the repetition of words that begin with the same consonant sound. For example, “marriage” and “minds” in the first line and “remover” and “remove” in the fourth line.

Caeusrae is used when the poet wants to create a pause in the middle of a line. The second line of the poem is a good example. It reads: “Admit impediments. Love is not love”. There is another example in line eight. It reads: “Whose worth’s unknown, although his height is taken.” The “pause” the poet uses might be marked with punctuation or intuited through the metrical pattern.

Personification is seen in the finals sestet of the poem. There, Shakespeare personifies “Time” and “Love,” something that he does more than once in his 154 sonnets. He refers to them as forces that have the ability to change lives purposefully.

Detailed Analysis

While this sonnet is clumped in with the other sonnets that are assumed to be dedicated to an unknown young man in Shakespeare’s life, this poem does not seem to directly address anyone. In fact, Sonnet 116 seems to be the speaker’s—in this case, perhaps Shakespeare—ruminations on love and what it is. The best way to analyze Shakespeare’s sonnets is to examine them line-by-line, which is what will follow.

In the first two lines, Shakespeare writes,

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

स्रोत : poemanalysis.com