Paper Example on True Love: Exploring Shakespeare's Iconic Sonnet 116

Popularly known as sonnet 116, Shakespeare’s “Let me not to the marriage of true mind” arguably the most universally embraced and glorified love poem in history. The poem was authored in the 1590s at a time when sonnets were quite popular and were published in 1609. How the poem proceeds to describe what true love is, gave the poem an edge over all other love poems. Love is described as an enduring and unwavering commitment between two people who share a bond that is so deep that it can only be broken by death (Mabillard, 2016). So moving and romantic was the poem that most readers were left doubting the sincerity of it all. How the poem depicted love could be easily mistaken for a hyperbole.

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Throughout the poem, Shakespeare proceeds to deduce, rather passionately, what love is, as well as what it is not. From the poem’s opening line, Shakespeare declares that a love that sways upon encountering hurdles is not loved (Mabillard, 2016). Love ought to withstand all storms. So confident is he in his comprehension of love that he is willing to stake on it. He views himself not only as one who observes love from a distance but a lover who is at the center of the action.

For an ardent reader, the poem comes out as the foundation or standard for affection. However, for more skeptical readers, questions or eyebrows are bound to be raised. For instance, Shakespeare has described love to be unchanging. He further implies that it is without fault and is an eternal ideal. However, all these descriptions paint love as something that can only be admired but can never be obtained does realized (Mabillard, 2016). Thus, the implication of the poem being full of hyperbole. Critics, therefore, feel that the poem cannot be used rightly as the standard of what love is or what it ought to be. They claim that the speaker is unreliable, and the poem is unrealistic.

While Shakespeare uses the word marriage to mean the legal union of two persons, he also employs the use of metaphor in it to mean a union could be between person or objects, without necessarily involving wedding vows. Instead, he uses the term minds. However, much as the understanding of the use of the term minds in this aspect is crucial to have an idea of what the poem is, and it is self-defeating to the idea of what exactly marriage is. Realistically, minds cannot be united legally in a church. Metaphorically though, since Shakespeare and the young man, to whom the poem is addressed, cannot have the marriage they so much desire, they stick to a union of their minds (Mabillard, 2016). Thus, his argument that no impediments can stand in the way of two people who truly love each other.

Conclusion

Finally, through the line, “If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved,” Shakespeare avers that should anyone come forward and prove any of his thoughts on love to be false, then no man has ever truly loved. Such are the high standards that he holds himself to that he regards himself as the mirror of love that everyone else turns to.

References

Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 116. Ed. Amanda Mabillard. Shakespeare Online. 8 Dec. 2012. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html