ASSIGNMENT-2

INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE

Submitted by : Kamran Muzaffar Qureshi

Department : English Language and Literature

Discipline : English Poetry

Class / Session : MA 1st English (Evening)

Submitted to : Sir Zahid

Date of Submission : 26 June 2020

SONNET 116 – AN IDEA OF TRUE LOVE

1. Introduction. Sonnet 116 is one of the world’s most celebrated short

poems by William Shakespeare. The poet uses a rather simple array of poetic
expression to express the transcendent nature of true love and how it overcomes any
barriers or obstructions. The central idea underscores that true love does not change or
alter with the passing of time, or with the fading of beauty and youth.

2. Analysis of the Poem. The topic of Sonnet 116 is love.  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. Shakespeare establishes the context early with his famous phrase “the marriage
of true minds”. The figure of speech suggests that true marriage is a union of minds
rather than merely a license for the physical interaction. More so, nothing can get in the
way of a marriage between true minds.  Love does not change when its object's
appearance or affections change, or if a lover turns or looks elsewhere, or is absent.
3. In the second quatrain, the poet tells about love, through a metaphor of “a guiding
star” to lost ships (wand’ring barks) that is not susceptible to storms (“looks on tempests
and is never shaken”). Love is like a star that guides a ship, a star that stays steady
during great storms.  Love is the star that guides every wandering ship, a star
whose value, quality, true nature is unknown even though its measure is taken to
determine the location of a ship. Love is as consistent and constant as the star ships
use to navigate by.  It doesn't change even when its object stops loving or begins loving
someone else, or is absent. Shakespeare then deliberately repeats phrases to show
that this kind of love is more than mere reciprocation. Love cannot be simply returning
what is given, like an exchange of gifts. It has to be a simple, disinterested, one-sided
offering, unrelated to any possible compensation. He follows this with a series of
positive and negative metaphors to illustrate the full dimensions of love. It is first “an
ever-fixéd mark/ That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” This famous figure has
not been completely explained, although the general idea is clear. Love is equated with
some kind of navigating device so securely mounted that it remains functional in
hurricanes. It then becomes not a device but a reference point, a “star,” of universal
recognition but speculative in its composition; significantly, it is beyond human ken.

4. In the third quatrain, the poet again describes that love 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 even to
the edge of doom.” Even though love is influenced by time, love is still more powerful
than time, as the following quote proves:

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.

5. Time does of course impact beauty and the appearance of love's adherents, but
it does not impact love itself, as true love remains constant "even to the edge of doom,"
or up until death itself, and, in some cases, beyond. In many ways, therefore the poem
is a pageant to the power of true love and its constancy. Love is not made a mockery of
by time, it is not a fool or court jester.  Time, nor the grim reaper, will bring death to
love.  Love lasts until the judgment day.

6. In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that love is as he says: if his
statements can be proved to be wrong, he declares, he must never have written a word,
and no man can ever have been in love. This implies if my thoughts above are incorrect
and it's proven to me, I've never written and no man has ever loved. Love lasts until
the final judgment.  And if all this isn't true, then the speaker has never written anything,
and no man has ever loved.