A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535833691

Book preview

3

Sonnet 116

William Shakespeare

1609

Introduction

An affirmation of the certitude and the enduring qualities of love, Sonnet 116 (first published in 1609) is nevertheless remarkably negative in tone. Rather than learning what love is, the reader is taught what love is not; even when the speaker begins to use metaphors to describe the constancy and endurance of this emotion, he discusses what love does not do, what is not known about it—and prefaces these observations with a o, no. To add to the confusion, the poem’s simultaneous and opposing messages are conveyed in simple words, but with complicated logic. The final couplet uses a monosyllabic vocabulary in an especially difficult example of reductio ad absurdum. But perhaps the strangest juxtaposition regarding Sonnet 116 is this: though the sonnet is probably one of the least understood in Shakespeare’s 154–poem sonnet sequence, it is a perennial favorite and a popular anthology