Sonnet 116艳色无边
Shakespeare's sonnet 116 was first published in 1609. It is about eternal and unchanging love and has been cherished in the past four hundred years for its hopeful and promising note. Its structure and form are a typical example of the Shakespearean sonnet.
青岛加盟The poet begins by stating he should not stand in the way of true love. Love cannot be true if it changes for any reason. Love is suppod to be constant, through any difficulties. In the sixth line, a nautical reference is made, alluding that love is much like the north star to sailors. Love should not fade with time; instead, true love lasts forever. When it says "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom," Shakespeare is saying that love is timeless, and only death can do it part.
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The last two lines employ a paradoxical conceit. If there is no such thing as true love, the poet says that neither has he ever written, nor has anyone ever experienced true love. However, becau the poem has been written, it means the poet, ultimately, is right about true love.
Structure
例假喝咖啡“The movement of 116, like its tone, is careful, controlled, laborious…it defines and redefines its subject in each quatrain, and this subject becomes increasingly, and vulnerable”. It’s split into three quatrains and a couplet. The sonnet starts out as motionless and distant, remote, independent then moves to be “less remote, more tangible and earthbound” and the couplet brings a n of “coming back down to earth”. Ideal love is deteriorating throughout the sonnet and continues to do so through the couplet.
Analysis
Overview
Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous, but some scholars have argued the theme has been misunderstood. Hilton Landry believes the appreciation of 116 as a celebration of true love is mistaken, in part becau its context in the quence of adjacent sonnets is n
ot properly considered. Landry acknowledges the sonnet “has the grandeur of generality or a “universal significance,” but cautions that “however timeless and universal its implications may be, we must never forget that Sonnet 116 has a restricted or particular range of meaning simply becau it does not stand alone.” Carol Thomas Neely writes that, “Sonnet 116 is part of a quence which is parate from all the other sonnets of Shakespeare becau of their n of detachment. They aren’t about the action of love and the object of that love is removed in this quence which consists of Sonnets 94, 116, and 129” This group of three sonnets doesn’t fit the mold of the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets, therefore. They defy the typical concept and give a different perspective of what love is and how it is portrayed or experienced. “Though 116 resolves no issues, the poet in this part of the quence acknowledges and accepts the fallibility of his love more fully than he could acknowledge that of the young man’s earlier” Other critics of Sonnet 116 have argued that one cannot rely on the context of the sonnet to understand its tone. They argue “there is no indisputably authoritative quence to them, we cannot make u of context as positive evidence for one kind of tone or another.” Sha
秦承勇kespeare doesn’t attempt to come to any significant conclusion within this particular sonnet becau no resolution is needed.
Quatrain 1
The sonnet begins with the poet's apparent acknowledgment of the compelling quality of the emotional union of "true minds". As Helen Vendler has obrved, “This famous almost ‘impersonal’ sonnet on the marriage of true minds has usually been read as a definition of true love.” This is not a unique theme of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Carol Neely obrves that “Like [sonnet] 94, it defines and redefines its subject in each quatrain and this subject becomes increasingly concrete, attractive and vulnerable.” Shakespeare tends to u negation to define love according to Lukas Erne, “The first and the third [quatrains], it is true, define love negatively: 'love '; Love''. The two quatrains are further tied together by the reappearance of the verbs 'to bend' and 'to alter'.” Love is defined in vague terms in the first quatrain.360刷机
Garry Murphy obrves that the meaning shifts with the distribution of emphasis. He sugg
ests that in the first line the stress should properly be on "me": “Let ME not to the marriage of ”; the sonnet then becomes “not just a gentle metaphoric definition but an agitated protest born out of fear of loss and merely conveyed by means of definition.” C.R. B. Combellack disputes the emphasis placed on the “ME” due to the “abnce from the sonnet of another person to stand in contrast. No one el is addresd, described, named, or mentioned.” Murphy also claims that “The unstopped first and cond lines suggest urgency in speech, not leisurely meditation.” He writes that the short words when delivered would have the effect of “rapid delivery” rather than “slow rumination”. Combellack question this analysis by asking whether “urgency is not more likely to be expresd in short bursts of speech?” He argues that the words in the sonnet are not intended to be read quickly and that this is simply Murphy’s subjective opinion of the quatrain. Murphy believes the best support of the “sonnet itlf being an exclamation” comes from the “O no” which he claims a person would not say without some agitation. Combellack obrves that “O no” could be ud rather calmly in a statement such as “O no, thank you, but my coffee limit is two cups.” If anything, Combellack suggests, the u
新春大吉of the “O” softens the statement and it would require the u of different grammar to suggest that the sonnet should be understood as rapid speech.
