Sonnet  116, William Shakespeare

Reading the title the reader can understand the sonnet belongs to a collection because  there is  a number identifying it and its first line corresponds to the title.

In the title the reader can see the words “marriage” and “true”. The words belong to the semantic field of love. The reader has some expectations about the content of the sonnet. It may be about love because he finds the words previously quoted. Another important element of the title is the negative imperative mode. The intelligent reader can understand there is  a poet’s specific purpose to underline the concept.

The sonnet structure is the typical structure of the Shakespearian sonnet arranged into three quatrains and a couplet.

Reading the sonnet the reader confirms his idea the sonnet is truly about love. The whole sonnet highlights the poet’s opinion about love.

In the first quatrain the poet writes about true love and love changes. He thinks  that love isn’t love if it changes and if it’s only love for the external aspects, for appearance. 

In the second quatrain he tells the reader about the meaning of love and what love should be like.

In the final couple the poet closes the sonnet saying  that love is something  stable and it cannot be otherwise.

The poet uses some figures of speech to underline  his thoughts: in lines 3 and 4 the reader can find the assonances. In line 3 “Which alters… alternations…” and in line 4 “… remove to remover”. In line 8 can be found the alliteration of “h” sound.

In my opinion there are some lines perfectly  underlining the poet’s idea of love. The lines are line 7 and lines  11,12: line 7 figures human love as something  that can save your life; lines 11-12 summarize all the poem. They are in key position at the end of the sonnet. They put the reader in front of a choice: sharing the poet’s opinion or not believing in love, without any different choice.