Shakespeare Sonnets

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Quatrains are four line stanzas of any kind

I have divided the following sonnet into the three quatrains.

You will also see the rhyming pattern

marked out for you.

Slide 13

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a) Admit impediments. Love is not love (b) Which alters when it alteration finds,(a) Or bends with the remover to remove:(b) O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c) That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)

It is the star to every wandering bark,(c) Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.(d)

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e) Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f) Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f) If this be error and upon me proved,(g) I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)

Slide 14

What does it mean?

Let me not declare any reasons why two True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances, Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful: Oh no! it is a lighthouse That sees storms but it never shaken; Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship, Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured. Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty Comes within the compass of his sickle. Love does not alter with hours and weeks, But, rather, it endures until the last day of life. If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly] loved.

Slide 15

Homework

1. What is a sonnet?

2. What is iambic pentameter?

3. What is the rhyming pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet?