Facts versus speculation
Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXVI
interpretation
by
Katja Böhme
William Shakespeare was born in 1594 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and died in 1616. He was a playwright and an actor while Elizabeth I was Queen. One of his most frequently cited poems is sonnet CXVI. It deals, like many of Shakespeare’s poems, with love.
The poem consists of fourteen lines: three quatrains, consisting of four lines each and one couplet. An iambic parameter is used:
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
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Admit impediments. Love is not love
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Which alters when it alteration finds
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Or bends with the remover to remove.
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Oh, no! It is an ever fixed mark
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That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
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It is the star to every wand’ ring bark,
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Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Each line has five accents and ten syllables, except in line six and eight where “shaken” and “taken” have 11 syllables.
The rhyme scheme is a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g, g. “Loved” and “proved” as much as “come” and “doom” are imperfect rhymes in modern English. Therefore b and f are sight rhymes because they look like they would rhyme. Sight rhymes can be caused by the change of pronunciation throughout history.
Throughout the entire sonnet an alliteration and consonance is used:
1 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
2 Admit impediments. Love is not love
3 Which alters when it alteration finds,
4 Or bends with the remover to remove.
5 Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark
6 That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
7 It is the star to every wandering bark,
8 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
9 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
10 Within his bending sickle's compass come.
11 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
12 But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
13 If this be error and upon me proved,
14 I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
The consonant sound of the letter “t” and sounds close to “t” like “d” and “th” are repeated.
This stylistic devise creates a pleasant consistency.
The first quatrain starts with a metaphor. “Marriage of true minds” is used to express a spiritual union between soul mates. ”Impediments” (line 2) are barriers. In line one and two persona states, that he would never object to “true love”.
“Alternation” and “remove” are words, the author uses to express change of the beloved one.
“Love is not love” when it fades away because the beloved one leaves (remove) or changes (alters).
In the second quatrain love is described as an “ever-fixed mark,” steadfast, even when facing life’s challenges or “tempests.” (line 5). “Mark” can refer to a landmark, like the rock of Gibraltar or the pyramids. It can also refer to a lighthouse especially since the speaker uses other words related to sea like “bark” (line 7) and “compass” (line 10).
The metaphor about “tempests” tries to express the resistance of love towards storms and other “impediments”.
Love “is the star to every wand’ ring bark” (line 7). Star is referring to the North Star, Polaris, which is a binary star. The pole star changes every couple thousand years, but Shakespeare couldn’t have known that. It was and still is the navigator’s basis for calculation and that’s why the star is used as a symbol for the constancy of love. In line seven assonance is used: “It is the star to every wandering bark”. The vowel sound a is repeated in three of the eight words to underline the symbol of love.
Loves “worth’s unknown” (line 8) means that it exceeds narrow comprehension and it has priceless value. Shakespeare couldn’t have known, that the North Star is about 300 light years away.
He might have thought, that humans could reach it somehow: “his height be taken” (line 8).
In the next quatrain abstraction breaks down. Love is said to be, “not time’s fool…” (line 9). This personification states that time cannot be stronger then love.
True love doesn’t disappear when beauty and youth are fading away (line 9). The consonants in line 10 have a hissing sound and therefore create an effect of unpleasantness: “his bending sickle’s compass come”. The stylistic device of cacophony should express again the negative influence time does have to beauty. “His” in line 11 means “Time’s”. This personification of time makes it to a tangible enemy. Time can also be seen as a symbol because Father Time stands for the passing of youth and life.
True love is constant, it doesn’t vary “with brief hours and weeks” (line 11) even if youth and beauty of the beloved are gone. "Bears it out" in line 12 means that love endures, stays constant and faithful even until death. Death is expressed through “the edge of doom” (line 12), which also refers to the final judgment. The speaker began this sonnet with an analogy to marriage. A traditional marriage ceremony contains the wording “until death do us apart”. Death is expressed through “the edge of doom” at the end of the third quatrain, basically the end of the poem.
To sum up, the three aspects are true love (line 1-4), love as a guide (line 5-8) and the influence time (line 9-12).
The last two lines of the sonnet one called a couplet. They make up the punch line. “Writ” is an archaic form of the word “written”. “I never writ” in line 14 means that all of the works of the speaker are worth nothing and without content. So the punch line is: When somebody proves the author to be wrong, all of his work would be without meaning and nobody would have ever loved.
At the beginning the speaker tells the reader what love is not, so he denies any short sighted image of love. This is underlined by negations at the beginning of all three quatrains : “Let me not…”, “O no,…”, “Love’s not …” (line 1,5,9). The speaker establishes a new image: Love is constant and timeless.
I think that this is the greatest love sonnet ever because the expressions of love are so unequivocally beautiful and confident.
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