3rd April 2015
GCSE English: 'Sonnet 116' Analysis
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Poet and context
One of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, poems on the theme of love, often addressed to specific people.
Content
Shakespeare declares that it is possible to find true, unchanging love; that such love is what guides us and is not going to be weakened by the passage of time.
Mood/tone
Adamant, certain, vehement.
Themes
Love (!), time, depth and superficiality,
Form and structure
Sonnet form (often used to explore the theme of love) , using the 3 quatrains to develop the 3 main points (true love will not change; love likened to a guiding star or beacon; love will not be diminished by passage of time or fading beauty) followed by couplet which reinforces the strength of his belief.
The tight structure of rhyme and rhythm keep his argument concise and controlled but the enjambment prevents it from losing fluency.
Language
Repetition of key words “love is not love”, “remover to remove” places emphasis on the major theme and suggests throughout a pairing.
Language from Wedding ceremony is used at start “admit impediments” to reinforce the message.
Nautical metaphor dominates 2nd stanza, “wandering bark” – suggests scale, permanence, power.
Uses stereotypical imagery from romantic verse to ironically dismiss the importance of beauty “rosy lips and cheeks”.
Personification of Love and Time makes their opposition more dramatic as does the powerful image at the end of the 3rd quatrain “even to the edge of doom”.
The force of S’s argument is intensified through the copious use of negatives, culminating in his almost absurd declaration in the final couplet “I never writ” (clearly not true) “nor no man ever loved” with its emphatic double negative.
Poet and context
One of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, poems on the theme of love, often addressed to specific people.
Content
Shakespeare declares that it is possible to find true, unchanging love; that such love is what guides us and is not going to be weakened by the passage of time.
Mood/tone
Adamant, certain, vehement.
Themes
Love (!), time, depth and superficiality,
Form and structure
Sonnet form (often used to explore the theme of love) , using the 3 quatrains to develop the 3 main points (true love will not change; love likened to a guiding star or beacon; love will not be diminished by passage of time or fading beauty) followed by couplet which reinforces the strength of his belief.
The tight structure of rhyme and rhythm keep his argument concise and controlled but the enjambment prevents it from losing fluency.
Language
Repetition of key words “love is not love”, “remover to remove” places emphasis on the major theme and suggests throughout a pairing.
Language from Wedding ceremony is used at start “admit impediments” to reinforce the message.
Nautical metaphor dominates 2nd stanza, “wandering bark” – suggests scale, permanence, power.
Uses stereotypical imagery from romantic verse to ironically dismiss the importance of beauty “rosy lips and cheeks”.
Personification of Love and Time makes their opposition more dramatic as does the powerful image at the end of the 3rd quatrain “even to the edge of doom”.
The force of S’s argument is intensified through the copious use of negatives, culminating in his almost absurd declaration in the final couplet “I never writ” (clearly not true) “nor no man ever loved” with its emphatic double negative.
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