Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare: Meaning, Analysis & Love That Alters Not

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments." Sonnet 116 is the wedding poem — recited at countless ceremonies. But it's not a love poem to a person. It's a definition of love itself. Shakespeare is arguing what love is — and what it isn't.

The Poem

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken...

Love is "an ever-fixed mark" (a lighthouse), "the star to every wand'ring bark." It doesn't change with "brief hours and weeks." It "bears it out even to the edge of doom." The final couplet: "If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

Key Literary Devices

Metaphor: Love as lighthouse ("ever-fixed mark"), as North Star ("star to every wand'ring bark"). Both images suggest guidance, permanence, reliability.

Definition by negation: Shakespeare defines love by what it's not. "Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds" — love doesn't change when the beloved changes. It doesn't leave when the beloved leaves.

Sonnet form: 14 lines, iambic pentameter, ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The final couplet is a bold claim: If I'm wrong about love, then love doesn't exist.

The Meaning: Love as Constant

Sonnet 116 defines true love as unchanging — through "tempests," "brief hours," "the edge of doom." It's not passion. It's commitment. The poem has been read at weddings because it promises permanence. Whether Shakespeare believed it or was performing an ideal — that's another question.