Sonnets 18 and 116 are two of Shakespeares most quotable love poems. If youre a fan of weddings, rose-petal-filled baths, or Kate Winslet in
Sense and Sensibility, youll probably recognize the lines Shall I compare thee to a summers day? and Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds. The problem with quotes, however, is that they lack context. Lets do a quick line-by-line overview of Sonnets 116 and 18. You might be surprised to find that one of these so-called love poems is very much not like the other.
Sonnet 116Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.This is Shakespeares equivalent of saying Mums the word to the ol Speak now or forever hold your peace bit of the marriage ceremony. In fact, Shakespeare wont even admit the
word impediments to the line that talks about marriage. Love: 1; Impediments: 0.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:In other words, hes not one for pulling any of this youve changed crap.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;Psh,
tempests.It is the star to every wandring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.The star to every wandring bark? Thatd have to be the North Star, which never appears to move from its place in the Northern Hemisphere. The reason its worths unknown is because Europeans didnt know a whole heck of a lot about stars back in Shakespeares day, what with still being bitter about the Earths roundness and all.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:Love: 2; Rosy Lips and Cheeks: 0. On a side note, remember that this is Shakespeare, meaning that anything a 12-year old could possibly construe as dirty probably is. Feel free to laugh, therefore, at the image of Old Father Times bending sickle.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.Love: 3; Edge of Doom: big ol goose egg. If love could speak, itd be saying booya right about now.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.Did Shakespeare just take an oath upon his own poetry? Thems fightin words. If youre not sure why, itll all make sense when we get to Sonnet 18.
Like
Sonnet 116,
Sonnet 18 is ranked high up there on Sappy Poetry lists usually by people who go for explicit rather than implicit meaning. If youve ever considered including a reading of Sonnet 18 at your anniversary party, the last three or so lines will probably change your mind. (If youre a
really careful reader, the first two will do the trick.) Lets start from the top.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Aww, how sweet! We think To be sure, lets read it again aloud. Remember to stress every second syllable, like so:
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Ah hah! Notice how I is emphasized but thee and thou arent? Sneaky. Lets continue.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summers lease hath all too short a date:Cant argue with that.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or natures changing course untrimmd;Yeah yeah, we get it everything in nature fades. Go back to that thou person already.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Woohoo! And the thy is emphasized! We knew Shakespeare would come around eventually!
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst,We like where this is going.
Nor shall death brag thou wanderst in his shade,Good, good. Keep it coming!
When in eternal lines to time thou growst;Uh oh, weve got ourselves a conditional. So lets get this straight: all that not fading, getting ugly, or dying business depends on growing in some eternal lines to time? What does that even mean? And please dont tell us it has anything to do with the fact that Sonnets 1-17 are also known as the procreation sonnets. If Shakespeares saying that the best way to bottle up all them good looks is by creating genetic blood lines, were going to go ahead and turn down that second date.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,Another conditional?!? Okay, okay: so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see is actually a decent amount of time, so well let it slide.
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.At last! an emphasized thee! But hold the phone:
whats giving thee life? Some unnamed
this?? Is Shakespeare referring back to those eternal lines? To give him a little credit, he probably knows enough about grammar to use the pronoun these when talking about something plural. Dare we ask if this is the sonnet itself? Might Shakespeare be suggesting that being featured in his work immortalizes you? Are those eternal lines the lines of the sonnet itself? Is the final thee only emphasized because its the end result of Shakespeares awesome, immortalizing poetry skills?
Probably. After all, being Shakespeare is like being an Elizabethan rockstar: you can bully the roadies, sleep with the groupies, trash the hotel rooms, and still be the worlds darling. And lets face it: if you went down in history as
The Bard, youd probably swear by your own poetry too.
