Discuss the Timeless Quality of Shakespeares Sonnets

Discuss the timeless quality of Shakespeare’s sonnets Shakespeare’s sonnets are lively reflections on love and time, these two themes seem to be the principal themes of Shakespeare’s sonnets and he returns to them again and again each time exploring them in a lively and personal matter. The theme of love and time are two themes that are timeless and still today, appeal to the modern reader. Shakespeare reveals how nerve wracking a relationship can be, but he also shows how love is ultimately the answer to life’s troubles and woes. Chief among these woes is the passage of time. No other poet has so vividly described the passage of time and the horror that this can inspire. Shakespeare reflected on this throughout most of his sonnets,†¦show more content†¦The sonnet’s endurance comes from Shakespeare’s ability to capture the essence of love so cleanly and succinctly. It still carries a timeless quality because the theme of love is still something that appeals to the modern day reader. Another of Shakespeare’s poems that deals with the theme of love is sonnet 116 (â€Å"Let me not†) Sonnet 116 is a poem in which Shakespeare is putting his side of an implied argument about the nature of love, this sonnet describes what love should ideally be.The opening two lines of the sonnet are drawn directly from the â€Å"Book of Common Prayer†. The internal rhyme and repetition of the third line â€Å"Which alters when it alteration finds† allows it to resonate with the reader, along with the alliterative a sounds. Within the first quatrain Shakespeare uses a negative â€Å"love is not love† to highlight the importance of constancy in true love â€Å"which alters when it alteration finds† From the beginning there is a defensive and assertive tone, this increases as the poem progresses, as Shakespeare is increasingly confident in his understanding and explanation of love. The â€Å"O† at the beginning of the second quatrain is an exclamation. Love is permanent â€Å"an ever fixà ©d mark†. The exclamation o illustrates the permanent nature of love. Shakespeare also uses a metaphor to describe