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Anthology Poetry: 'Sonnet 116' (Shakespeare) - Coggle Diagram
Anthology Poetry: 'Sonnet 116' (Shakespeare)
Context
Written and published in a peaceful era (1564-1616) during the reign of Elizabeth I.
People were previously occupied with external turmoil, however were now for the first time introspecting and focusing on matters of the heart- why the sonnet form became popular as it was synonymous with love poetry.
Elizabeth I supported the arts, poetry and literature- 'one of the most glorious reigns'.
Sonnet 116 was one of the 'Fair Youth' sonnets- addressed to an unnamed young man. Writes about him in romantic and loving language- some have read it as platonic, others as sexual/romantic
Structure
Form, meter + rhyme scheme
Divided into three quatrains: an octave, a sestet and a rhyming couplet.
Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter almost consistently (heartbeat sound- reflects Sonnet 116's subject matter).
First line's meter is irregular, but the stresses are reversed (1st and 3rd syllables). Normally sonnets start out with a regular meter, so unconventional choice- could be illustrative of love itself: it weathers and overcomes storms without altering its nature, just as the meter has some rocky parts but smooths out and conforms to the sonnet form.
Volta
Italian for 'turn'.
Standard feature of sonnets.
Before the final couplet, however, volta occurs early (between lines 8 + 9) where the image of love as a guiding star is replaced by personification of love as eternal.
Still continuity between quatrains by the negatives. Continuity mirrors love's consistency.
Language
Hyperbole
Hyperbole throughout- critics argue that it makes its characterisation of love unrealistic and outlandish.
Attempts to counter any accusations of hyperbole in the final couplet, when he says that if he is proven wrong, no man ever loved (they don't know what love is).
Hyperbole captures the extremity of his views on love.
Metaphor
Shakespeare uses variety of metaphors to capture love's essence.
First, lighthouse and guiding star, linked by a boat which follows both stars and the lighthouse.
Alternatively, second metaphor is a metaphor within a metaphor: love is a lighthouse, and the lighthouse's light is a star that the boats follow- elevated nature of love.
Personification
After volta, Shakespeare personifies time then love (capitalisation and personal pronouns).
Love endures until very last, and this emphasised by the elongated line (extra syllable).
Personification of love seems to make love an impersonal or transpersonal entity.
Present in humans but ultimately a force that outlives him.
Themes
True/platonic love:
Many poems in anthology place a large emphasis on lust and physical intimacy, 'Sonnet 116' focuses on platonic love.
About purity of love and less about physicality. Mental union: a 'marriage of two mindes'.
Change/everlasting love:
Love is a constant and outlasts mortal bodies.
Doesn't alter within a lifetime and survives beyond it (until Judgement Day).
Counters other portrayals of love as being something that matures over time.
Comparisons
To poetry:
'La Belle Dame sans Merci':
Similarities:
Both themes of fantastic love, both see love as inalterable (116: love does not 'bend with the remover to remove'. La Belle: the knight has been abandoned by his lover, but his love is still strong.).
Differences:
Keats creates a story while Shakespeare has a short sonnet.
Love causes distress in La Belle, whereas in 116 it is portrayed as perfect.
116 portrays love as pure and primarily spiritual whereas La Belle contains erotic references.
The knight in La Belle may be infatuated whereas Shakespeare seems to be describing perfect love, not infatuation.
To Gatsby:
Similarities:
Both Shakespeare and Fitzgerald present love as powerful, that can transcend ordinary limits.
Time is a central pressure on love in both.
Both texts explore love as an ideal- superficial?
Differences:
Sonnet 116 presents love as mutual, stable and rational whereas Gatsby's love is obsessive, one-sided and illusion-based.
Shakespeare celebrates constancy; Fitzgerald exposes delusion.
116 ends with certainty and confidence in love's truth, affirming love, whereas Gatsby ends in death and disillusionment, critiquing love.
Fitzgerald links romantic failure to society; Shakespeare universalises love.
Thesis: Sonnet 116 presents love as an eternal, unchanging force that transcends time and adversity, The Great Gatsby exposes the tragic consequences of attempting to impose such an ideal onto reality, where love is corrupted by class, money and illusion.
Key Quotes
'marriage of true mindes'
'love is not love which alters when it alteration findes'
'ever fixed marke'
'the star to every wandring barke'
'Lov's not Times foole'
'If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved;