In William Shakespeare’s poem, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds,” Shakespeare professes that love is everlasting. Throughout the poem, Shakespeare describes different scenarios in which love proves victorious or unceasing. He first demonstrates this by utilizing imagery, describing that “Love is not love which alters,” (2-3) or “bends with the remover to remove.” (4) Shakespeare evokes the sense of sight to exemplify that love is relentless and that it isn’t easily modified. He gives readers two instances in which one can imagine love as being permanent. In lines 6-7, Shakespeare perceives love to be “an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Here, Shakespeare continues to highlight the sense of sight by personifying that love can even endure violent and chaotic windstorms. Although a dangerous experience, love is also very tough. He also claims that “Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.” (9-10) Love and time are both personified as enemies that battle against each together. Shakespeare helps readers visualize that although “time” wants to “sickle” “Love,” he can’t because “Love” is not easily deceived. Love is eternal and can’t be fooled by time because “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.” (11-12) Throughout various instances, Shakespeare asserts that love is endless and conquering. He applies imagery to emphasize the various ways love is everlasting.
I believe the turn of the argument takes place in the second line. Although Shakespeare claims that he will not “admit impediments,” he ironically admits them, and continuous to describe his perspective on love throughout the rest of the poem.
However, the turn may also be the last two lines. Throughout the rest of the poem, Shakespeare never questions his opinion about love, always declaring what love “is” and what love “is not.” Ironically, he lightly hesitates, “If this be error,” (13) but then quickly reasserts himself, “and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” (13-14) Since Shakespeare is a famous poet and playwright, his argument of love being everlasting must be true.
By describing both sides of love, Shakespeare strengthens his argument by giving readers two perspectives of
how love is enduring.
This sonnet was really enjoyable to read and pretty straightforward about the endurance of love.
ReplyDeleteI never associated the imagery of the first two parts of the poem with sight as you did, which is very interesting. Looking at the sonnet this way, the shift in the third part (lines 9-12) seems more apparent to me. I would be careful about the claims you made antagonizing love with time. I do not see any imagery that shows this "battle." I guess the connotation of "fool" and the imagery of the "sickle" might make some see this love-time battle. For me, "love's not time's fool" compares love to people's relationship with time. Most people are imbued with a thought of "living life to the fullest" and, as a result, lead lives that are all about doing what you can before you die. Love, on the other hand, has no fear of death and is not motivated by it (Humans are definitely fools for time, unless you believe you're immortal XD). This idea of Love not being vulnerable to time shows that love is sustainable, enduring, and calm. People should take a lesson from love and stop worrying about time. Also, the "sickle" for me brings about the image of death, simply adding to the finiteness of time.
Finally, I would be really careful when designation Shakespeare as the speaker of the poem. It's not a good idea to immediately place the poet as the speaker because then it's easier to make claims about the poet when you don't know the person. In the final couplet, I don't think Shakespeare would be claiming that love is enduring SIMPLY because he wrote about it and he's famous. For me, the speaker simply says that if all these claims about love prove false, then it wouldn't have been possible to write so beautifully about it in the first place; and, humans would not have the capacity to love at all.
I did not analyze Sonnet 116 for my blog post but I really enjoyed reading it. I agree that Shakespeare presents a speaker who believes that love is relentless. In line 6 where the speaker tells us that love can look “on tempests and is never shaken”, I didn’t see it as imagery for chaotic windstorms but as the lover(s) facing temptation but is not even shocked or motivated by it. I also agree that time wishes to “sickle love” but I don’t think that time is unable to just because love can’t be “easily deceived” but because love is too strong for time to break. I agree with “JLayco” that you shouldn’t just assume that the writer is the speaker. We can’t simply say that just because he is famous that he was conceited enough to think that whatever he writes is correct. In the end where the speaker declares that if he can be proved wrong then “I never writ, nor no man ever loved” (14), I felt he was saying that if love isn’t everlasting, then he and all other writers would have nothing to write about because a lot of poetry is about love.
ReplyDelete