Sonnet 116 Flashcards
by William Shakespeare — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: Sonnet 116
What claim does the speaker make in the opening lines of Sonnet 116?
The speaker declares he will not acknowledge any obstacles to the union of two faithful, like-minded lovers.
How does the second quatrain (lines 5-8) develop the argument about love?
It shifts from negation to metaphor, comparing love to an ever-fixed mark (a lighthouse) and a guiding star (the North Star) that ships depend on in storms.
What challenge does the third quatrain (lines 9-12) pose to love?
It tests love against Time itself. Though Time destroys youth and beauty with his sickle, love is not Time's fool and endures to the edge of doom.
What wager does the closing couplet make?
The speaker bets his entire career as a writer: if his definition of love is wrong, then he never wrote anything, and no person has ever truly loved.
Who is the speaker addressing in Sonnet 116?
The speaker addresses no specific person but makes a universal declaration about the nature of true love, framed as a vow or public testimony.
How is Time characterized in Sonnet 116?
Time is personified as a powerful destroyer who wields a bending sickle to cut down youth and beauty, yet ultimately cannot conquer true love.
How does Sonnet 116 define true love?
True love is constant and unchanging. It does not alter when circumstances change, does not weaken when a partner pulls away, and endures beyond physical beauty and even death.
What is the relationship between love and Time in Sonnet 116?
Love and Time are adversaries. Time destroys physical beauty, but love transcends Time's power, remaining constant through brief hours and weeks until the edge of doom.
How does the poem connect love to navigation and the sea?
Love is compared to a fixed lighthouse and the North Star that guide wandering ships through storms, suggesting love provides direction and stability in a chaotic world.
What makes this poem's vision of love idealistic?
It sets an almost impossibly high standard: love must never change for any reason, must outlast all physical decay, and must endure until the end of existence itself.
What is polyptoton, and where does Shakespeare use it in Sonnet 116?
Polyptoton is repeating a root word in different forms. Shakespeare uses it with alters/alteration and remover/remove to show love being tested by its own language and emerging unchanged.
Identify the extended metaphor in the second quatrain of Sonnet 116.
Love is compared to a nautical beacon — an ever-fixed mark (lighthouse) and a star (the North Star) guiding wandering ships (barks) through tempests at sea.
How does Shakespeare use personification in Sonnet 116?
Time is personified as a reaper figure wielding a bending sickle that cuts down rosy lips and cheeks. Love is personified as something that refuses to be Time's fool.
What role does negation play as a rhetorical strategy in Sonnet 116?
Shakespeare defines love primarily through what it is not — it is not love which alters, is never shaken, is not Time's fool. This negative framing paradoxically makes the positive claims stronger.
What is the rhyme scheme and meter of Sonnet 116?
It follows the Shakespearean sonnet form: three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
What does "impediments" mean in line 2 of Sonnet 116?
Impediments are obstacles or objections. The word echoes the marriage ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer, which asks if anyone knows a just cause or impediment to the union.
What is a "bark" in line 7 of Sonnet 116?
A bark (or barque) is a ship or sailing vessel. Shakespeare calls love a guiding star to every wandering bark — every ship lost at sea.
What does "bears it out" mean in line 12?
"Bears it out" means endures or withstands to the very end. Love bears it out even to the edge of doom — it perseveres until the final boundary of existence.
Complete the line: "Love is not love / Which alters when it _____ finds."
Alteration. The line uses polyptoton — repeating the root word alter in a different form — to emphasize that true love does not change even when change surrounds it.
What does Shakespeare call love in lines 5-6: "O no, it is an _____ / That looks on tempests and is never shaken"?
An ever-fixed mark. This metaphor compares love to a permanent navigational landmark — like a lighthouse — that stands firm through any storm.
Complete the couplet: "If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor _____."
Nor no man ever loved. The speaker stakes his entire identity as a writer and the existence of all love on his definition being correct.