Sonnett 116
Over the years, Shakespeare's sonnet has been interpreted in many different ways, but an overarching theme is still found in every version. That theme is: true love, and the constancy to do anything for love when faced with great obstacles. If we believe this poem is simply a reflection of true love, then we can agree with Robert Levine and his detached perspective. "Clearly, the most important consideration in interpreting #116 is not to find a new position for it within the Sonnets or (though the possibilities are fascinating) to relate to the story of the poet, the young Man, & the Dark Lady, but simply to give all words in #116 their full meaning, and to pursue all implications within the poem".Essentially, this sonnet presents the extreme model of romantic love: it never changes, it never fades, and it outlasts death and admits no failing. Annemarie S. Muth points out that "Sonnet 116" expresses a conviction of the permanence and validity of emotion in all its different forms. "Sonnet 116" is Shakespeare's profession of faith in the ideal of constancy in love".The poem opens with an act of defiance, insisting that although nothing can last forever, true love is pure and embedded in the truth of eternity. Love is cons
Love is both the ever fixed-mark, and the Pole star to guide the lover through the stormy waters of life. Life is fleeting, and the human life is measured by the brief hours and weeks of experience. Floating high in space, the stars look down upon the world below. Nevertheless, by the end of the piece he has convinced himself to put his doubts aside and believe that such constancy in love is possible" . "The poet had a case to make and a primary audience of one: you dear creature, should return my love for any number of excellent reasons which I could name; you should put aside this reticence; you should grant me a kiss; you should grant me more than a kiss; you should be faithful only to me; you should be as I imagine you to be. Time may be measured in petty hours and weeks; love's only proper measure begins where time leaves off ("the edge of doom") The love which everyone can see is not the most valuable. While the "star" (the faithful lover) protects and guides the "wandering bark" (the object of his love), the faithful lover's "worth's unknown". In love, time and space are completely disregarded. " Love does not change just because the beloved changes or stops when the beloved leaves. "O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempest and is never shaken. "The sonnet has staged its own undoing and, doing so, has rendered an eloquent portrait of faith-under-pressure". In love there is no distance of time, even if there is a difference of thousands of years.
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Love's Time's,
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,
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Robert Levine,
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