Sonnet 116

Question 1

“Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds,”

Answer 1

Paradox—how can love not be love? This emphasizes constancy through rhetorical questioning.

Question 2

“Or bends with the remover to remove:”

Answer 2

Repetition of “remove” stresses the idea that true love is immovable.
Structure: Continues the first quatrain’s rhythm; iambic pentameter mirrors the firmness of love.

Question 3

“That looks on tempests and is never shaken;”

Answer 3

Metaphor comparing love to a lighthouse, enduring life’s storms.
Structure: Continuation of the second quatrain’s imagery; enjambment gives it a flowing, storm-like rhythm.

Question 4

“It is the star to every wandering bark,”

Answer 4

Nautical metaphor—love as a guiding North Star to lost ships, suggesting constancy and guidance.
Structure: Mid-sonnet metaphor, central to the poem’s imagery; supports the argumentative structure.

Question 5

“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle’s compass come;”

Answer 5

Personifies Time as a reaper, emphasizing love’s resistance to physical decay.
Structure: In the third quatrain (lines 9–12); shifts to time and mortality, raising the stakes.