What View of Love does Shakespeare Present?
In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare presents a personal view of love which is uplifting, but also dark. He questions whether the 'love' in question is really true 'love'.
The Sonnet is written in the first person. Shakespeare immediately puts himself inside the poem from the very first words: ‘Let me not’. The start of the poem, ‘admit impediments’, begins the dark tone. 'Impediments' suggests problems, and echoes the words of the marriage service, where the priest has to ask if anyone has reasons against the marriage. The antithesis, or opposites, used throughout (‘alters not’ … ‘but bears it out’) also suggests the style of the wedding service, ‘for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’. It is as if Shakespeare presents his view of love through playing with the words of the Wedding Service. Though love, of course, is not identical to marriage.
There is some evidence that Shakespeare’s lover was planning to get married (to someone else). If so, the start of the poem could take on a more sinister tone, almost as if Shakespeare is threatening to ‘admit impediments’ to the wedding, and questioning whether it is in fact a ‘marriage of true minds’. The sinister effect is increased by the use of the subjunctive (let), which makes ‘let me not’ dependent on whether or not the marriage it is, in fact, a ‘marriage of true minds’, or a more lustful, physically inclined love of ‘rosy lips and cheeks’.
Shakespeare warns the reader – or more specifically, his lover – that what seems ‘love’ may not be true ‘love’. This idea is laid out by the place in ‘love is not love’, which seems to contradict itself. Shakespeare shows that what we call ‘love’ may just be the appearance of love, ‘the rosy lips and cheeks’ – or beauty – which will surely be destroyed by ‘Time’. In antithesis to false love, Shakespeare sets up the idea of true love through a developed series of metaphors. First he uses synecdoche to link and contrast ‘true minds’ with ‘rosy lips and cheeks’: two things of
The Sonnet is written in the first person. Shakespeare immediately puts himself inside the poem from the very first words: ‘Let me not’. The start of the poem, ‘admit impediments’, begins the dark tone. 'Impediments' suggests problems, and echoes the words of the marriage service, where the priest has to ask if anyone has reasons against the marriage. The antithesis, or opposites, used throughout (‘alters not’ … ‘but bears it out’) also suggests the style of the wedding service, ‘for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’. It is as if Shakespeare presents his view of love through playing with the words of the Wedding Service. Though love, of course, is not identical to marriage.
There is some evidence that Shakespeare’s lover was planning to get married (to someone else). If so, the start of the poem could take on a more sinister tone, almost as if Shakespeare is threatening to ‘admit impediments’ to the wedding, and questioning whether it is in fact a ‘marriage of true minds’. The sinister effect is increased by the use of the subjunctive (let), which makes ‘let me not’ dependent on whether or not the marriage it is, in fact, a ‘marriage of true minds’, or a more lustful, physically inclined love of ‘rosy lips and cheeks’.
Shakespeare warns the reader – or more specifically, his lover – that what seems ‘love’ may not be true ‘love’. This idea is laid out by the place in ‘love is not love’, which seems to contradict itself. Shakespeare shows that what we call ‘love’ may just be the appearance of love, ‘the rosy lips and cheeks’ – or beauty – which will surely be destroyed by ‘Time’. In antithesis to false love, Shakespeare sets up the idea of true love through a developed series of metaphors. First he uses synecdoche to link and contrast ‘true minds’ with ‘rosy lips and cheeks’: two things of