Sonnets

William Shakespeare's sonnet was first published in 1609. Its structure and form are a typical example of the Shakespearean sonnet. This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In the first quatrain, the speaker says that love-"e; the marriage of true minds"e;-is perfect and unchanging; it does not "e;admit impediments,"e; and it does not change when it finds changes in the loved one. Over the course of Sonnet 116, the speaker makes several passionate claims about what love is-and what it isn't. For the speaker (traditionally assumed to be Shakespeare himself, and thus a man), true love doesn't change over time: instead, it goes on with the same intensity forever.