Here’s a full breakdown of ‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare, tailored towards GCSE / IGCSE students but also useful for those studying at a higher level. Enjoy!
Includes:
THE POEM
VOCABULARY
STORY/SUMMARY
SPEAKER/VOICE
LANGUAGE
STRUCTURE/FORM
CONTEXT
THEMES
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
VOCABULARY
Impediment > Something that stops something else from working.
Admit > Can mean ‘confess’, but in this case it means ‘allow’.
Tempest > Storm
Remover > Someone who tries to get rid of something.
Writ > Wrote
STORY/SUMMARY
Don’t let me allow any barriers or obstructions to the marriage of true minds (two
people who are purely connected via intellect). Love can’t be called ‘love’ if it changes
when something else is changed (true love never changes), and it doesn’t go away if
someone tries to remove it. No! It’s a fixed point in the distance that is never affected by
storms. It is a star in the distance that allows lost ships to find their way. You can’t
measure the value of love, but you can measure its height (it belongs to the heavens).
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