Question

What is the theme of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116?

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;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

A.) steadfastness of love
B.) immortality of art
C.) power of time and nature
D.) uncertainty of life

Answer 1

the answer is A. the whole beginning of the poem is saying Love does not seek to change what it doesn't like, it finds a way to love through it. The poem then moves to the theme of love does not diminish over time

Answer 2

William Shakespeare's sonnets deal with a variety of themes. Sonnet 116 in particular revolves around the steadfastness of love, option A. The constancy of love is alluded in several words used in the sonnet: "an ever-fixed mark" and "never shaken" for instance serve the purpose of reinforcing the concept of steadfastness.