Analysis of Shakespeares Sonnet 16 - Essay Example

Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 16 Written by: Shakespeare's verbal imagery exists in all of his writings. The imagery brings surroundings to life in ways some would not think words might manage. Sonnet sixteen focuses on how love exists in the mind and soul. This sonnet would also focus on how time affects love. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love"1 These first two lines of the sonnet show how the marriage of true minds would find no faults in each other.

In the case of true love, it would prepare them for those faults and differences. The imagery is that in a marriage of true love though love would not be blind. Love would not find excessive fault either and impediments would only be temporary. "Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:"2 Love is not love that changes when changes are found or bends, love weaves through and over these alterations and changes to provide unity. This is the image of true love and devotion between a man and woman.

Shakespeare does very well in his understanding of this emotion. "O no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;"3 Love in this line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 would be ever present. Nothing could disturb or destroy the love created. Love weathers the storms that may come. This imagery reveals the strengths love would have for any couple truly in the throes of passion and love in marriage. "It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

"4 The tone and theme of this sonnet has been about how love exists and is shared in marriage. The tone for this particular section is uplifting. It gives the emotion of love a celestial, heavenly quality of unknown worth and regardless of station or stature. This is an important evocative portrayal of marriage and love. "Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come:"5 This particular pair of lines provides a personality for both love and time.

It discusses how love would transcend time and space regardless that time continues on. The essence of marriage in its truest sense is that time is not focused upon and only deepens that love which exists. This love that brought about marriage transcends time and continues beyond it. "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."6 Shakespeare provides insight in how true love would withstand everything, even certain doom.

Again, Shakespeare offers a grain of truth in his words. He speaks of true love as though it were living, breathing, no matter that it is emotion. Shakespeare paints the picture that love makes time stand still, no matter how brief the time may be.