Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare defines true love as everlasting and unchanging, unaffected by obstacles or the passage of time. It emphasizes love's steadfastness, comparing it to a guiding star that remains constant through life's challenges. The poem concludes with a powerful assertion that if Shakespeare's views on love are proven wrong, then no one has ever loved truly.

1. LET ME NOTTOTHE
MARRIAGE OFTRUE
MINDS(SONNET 116)
By Shakespeare
By: Parista Dsear
Asmita Rai
Shiiksha Sharrof

2. Content
About Author
PoemText
Themes
Structure, form and poem details
Literary Device and Similar poetry
Summary
Analysis
Conclusion

3. About Author
• William Shakespeare is considered to be the greatest English poet and dramatist.
• He was born in 1564 , the son of glover in Stratford Upon Avon, the son of wool
dealer.
• He wrote plays divided into lyric, comedies, historical and tragedies plays. He also
wrote numerous sonnets
• He was educated at the grammar school and married to Anne Hathaway in 1582.
• By 1592, he was established in London as an actor and a dramatist. In 1594, he was
an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Company of actors. He was the
leading playwright of the company and one of its business directors ; he also
continued to act.

4. About Author
• About 1593 he came under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, to whom he
dedicated his long pomes and seems to have dedicated to him his sonnetsWritten
around 1593-1596.
• The present sonnet also comes in the same category.
• The mysterious “Dark lady” also appears in these sonnets
• He retired to Stratford about in 1610, where he died on 23 April 1616. He was
buried in the chancel of HolyTrinity,Stratford.

5. About to poem
• Sonnet 116 was 1st published in 1609 and is one of the most famous sonnets in the
world.
• It is about everlasting love and is widely known for its idealistic vision of a loving
relationship.
• It is often read at marriage ceremonies.
• It attempts to define love, by explaining what it is and what it is not. It is definite
and improving
• This sonnet presents the extreme ideal of romantic love: it never changes, it never
fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw.
•

6. PoemText

7. 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 wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken
Love’s notTime’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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

8. Structure, form and poem details
• A true Shakespearean sonnet is also referred as an Elizabethan or English sonnet.
• This type of sonnet contains fourteen lines, which are separated into three
quatrains (four lines) and end with a rhyming couplet (two lines).
• The rhyme pattern of this sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.
• Like most of Shakespeare’s works, this sonnet is written in iambic pentameter,
which means each line consists of ten syllables, and within those ten syllables,
there are five pairs, which are called iambs (one stressed syllable followed by an
unstressed syllable).

9. Literary Device and Similar poetry
• Shakespeare makes use of several literary devices in ‘Sonnet 116,’ these include
but are not limited to sound repetition, examples of caesurae, and
characterization.
• The first, sound repetition, is concerned with the repetition of words that begin
with the same consonant sound. For example, “marriage” and “minds” in the first
line and “remover” and “remove” in the fourth line.
• Caesurae is used when the poet wants to create a pause in the middle of a line.
• The second line of the poem is a good example. It reads: “Admit impediments.
Love is not love”.

10. Literary Device and Similar poetry
• This poem also look into some of Shakespeare’s most popular sonnets.
• These include ‘Sonnet 130’ and ‘Sonnet 18‘.The first is recognized by its opening
line, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” while the last starts with the line
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

11. Literary Device and Similar poetry
• There is another example in line eight. It reads: “Whose worth’s unknown,
although his height is taken.
• ”The “pause” the poet uses might be marked with punctuation or intuited through
the metrical pattern.
• Characterization is seen in the finals sestet of the poem.
• Shakespeare characterizes “Time” and “Love,” something that he does more
than once in his 154 sonnets.
• He refers to them as forces that have the ability to change lives purposefully.

12. Themes
• Shakespeare used some of his most familiar themes in ‘Sonnet 116’. These include
time, love, and the nature of relationships.
• In the fourteen lines of this sonnet, he delves into what true love is and whether or
not it’s real.
• He uses a metaphor to compare love to a star that’s always present and never
changes.
• He is so confident in this opinion that he asserts no man has ever loved before if
he’s wrong.
• Shakespeare also brings elements of time into the poem.
• He emphasizes the fact that time knows no boundaries, and even if the people in
the relationship change, the love doesn’t.

13. 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 wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken
Love’s notTime’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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Love theme
Marriage
Loyalty
Literature& Writing

14. Theme
• Love theme: it is based on theTrue Minds, No Change, Non Removal in the love of
one man
• Marriage theme: it is based on the Ever-fixed Mark , unshakable, shower of path.
• Loyalty theme: the love never changes with time and love is eternal too
• Literature and writing theme :all the lines of pome are statement are true. His
writing is eternal in the pome .

15. Summary
• It is one of most famous sonnets, 'let me not to the Marriage ofTrue Minds’
describes the qualities of true love.
• The poet says in the poem that true lover cannot be hindered by obstacles since
they are united by love.
• It never changes, even when change is possible. It does not submit to the power of
its annihilator.
• The poet claims that it is steadfast and constant beyond comparison and it is
never true love that submits to anyone.
• The poem is compared between true love and the sun and the pole stare, which
remain constant and guide ships in the unknown ocean, the poem’s theme is fully
developed.

16. Summary
• True love does not succumb to life’s difficulties and guides lovers throughout their
lives.
• As the sun and the pole star are eternal and unchanging, so too is real love.
• The time is a universal destroyer that destroys everything except true love.
• Time is compared to farmer. Crops are reaped with a sickle by a farmer.Time wear
away the physical beauty of a person.
• As for the true love, it is not within the sickle's reach.Time has no effect on it.The
depth of love, like the worth and potential of a guiding star, is impossible to
understand completely.

17. Summary
• Love or a spiritual love, is not affected by death, decay, and the destruction of
time. Lovers, love is constant, immortal, and a source of guidance in life.
• The sonneteer finally says that if his thought is proved wrong, he will leave
composing poems thinking that no man ever loved truly OrThe speaker closes by
saying that no man has ever truly loved before if he is wrong about this.

18. Analysis of 1st Quatrains
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:
• the poet gives the definition of true love.
• He says that true love is fixed and eternal.
• The poem is a beautiful love sonnet.
• These are the opening lines.

19. • In these lines William Shakespeare says that there cannot be any obstacle in the
union of minds of the persons who are true to each other.
• Here, in these lines, ‘marriage’ is suggesting joining together, friendship and
understanding.
• It is the marriage of true minds and not to the marriage of bodies.
• In other words this marriage of two true minds is true love and this true love never
changes with the passage of time and circumstances.
• That love is not true love which changes when it finds a chance to change.
• True love or the spiritual love does not submit to the power of its annihilator.
• Here in these lines the poet gives the idea of the genuine love which never
changes and never yields. It always remains permanent.

20. Analysis of 2nd Quatrains
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.
• In these lines the poet gives the qualities of true love. He says that there can be no
external barriers in the way of the union of true lovers.
• There love is constant like a light house and the Pole star. It guides lovers as the
Pole star guides the wandering ships. It is permanent and immortal.

21. • The poet asserts that true love is constant and firm. He compares true love to a
light house and the Pole star.
• As the light house in constant, It faces storms in the sea and is never shaken, in the
same way true love is not shaken by the difficulties and problems of life.
• The Pole star serves as infallible guides to the ships in the uncharted ocean.True
love also guides lovers in life.
• The depth of true love, like full value and potentialities of the guiding star can
never be completely acknowledged.
• The Pole star and ideal love are both beyond human estimation.
• They are true height to be measured. In other words we cannot measure the real
influence of love on human life.

22. Analysis of 3rd
Love’s notTime’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.
• The capitalization of the word “Time.” He is describing time as a person, specifically,
Death. He says that love is not the fool of time.
• One’s rosy lips and cheeks will certainly pale with age, as “his bending sickle’s compass
come.”
• Shakespeare’s diction is important here, particularly with his use of the word “sickle.”Who
is the person with whom the sickle is most greatly associated? Death.We are assured here
that Death will certainly come, but that will not stop love. It may kill the lover, but the love
itself is eternal.This thought is continued in lines eleven and twelve, the final two lines of
the third quatrain. Shakespeare writes,

23. • We are assured here that Death will certainly come, but that will not stop love.
• It may kill the lover, but the love itself is eternal.
• This thought is continued in lines eleven and twelve, the final two lines of the third
quatrain.
• He is simply stating here that love does not change over the course of time;
instead, it continues on even after the world has ended (“the edge of doom”).
• The uses lines thirteen and fourteen, the final couplet of Sonnet 116, to assert just
how truly he believes that love is everlasting and conquers all.

24. Rhyming couplet
If this be error and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
• He said that if someone proves he is wrong about love, then he never wrote the
following words, and no man ever loved.
• He is conveying here that if his words are untrue, nothing else would exist.
• The words he just wrote would have never been written, and no man would have
ever loved before.
• He is adamant about this, and his tough words are what strengthen the sonnet
itself.
• The speaker and poet himself are convinced that love is real, true, and everlasting.

25. Conclusion
• As we know that sonnet 116 as know as “let me not to the marriage of true mind”
is one of the most famous sonnet of Shakespeare's.
• This sonnet expresses the conviction and belief in true love. And the poem is part
of a collection dedicated to a mysterious person
• He also describe love in sonnet 116 by compare love to the north star and
personifies it to describe true love.
• The eternal and unconditional natural of true love is the most prominent theme of
sonnet 116
• The poem is dedicated to a young male lover.

26. Conclusion
Written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
From/style Shakespearean Sonnet
Meter Iambic pentameter
Rhyme scheme Quatrains 1,2,3-ABAB;rhyming couplet
Literary devices Alliteration; hyperbole; metaphor; personification; polyptoton
Tone Assertive; Passionate; Semi-autobiographical
Key themes Love; Beauty and Mortality
Meaning In the poem, the speaker represents the idea of love as constant, unending, and
irrevocable.The speaker asserts that love is not love if it changed, diminished or
ended.They also state that love does not depended on reciprocation.Towards the
end of the poem, the speaker has firmly established their faith in love.