Talk:Sonnet 116

message: Tone and Meaning
From the article it seems no one has considered the tone of the sonnet given the strict iambic meter that the poem is written in (as I understand it, strict meter was an absolute requirement of poems at that time). The first line should read "let ME not TO the MARriage of TRUE minds." When you read it with proper meter it becomes clear this is one side of a bitter disagreement. It's not all just pretty poetic language, and this fits with the theme of the other 'fair youth' poems. To me this poem is clearly about unrequited love, but many people seem to misread it with the misunderstanding that it's about true love.
Wonderful...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.50.202.242 (talk) 02:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there is little in the commentary section of interest, need to be rewritten in a more formal style, and not simply lifted off of another site
Yeah, and in line 12 of the poem, the word "beats" was typed instead of "bears."  That needs to be fixed.
Problems, problems. . .
I feel certain that my edits will not stand, but the previous interpretation was too shallow to let stand, either.  The previous version saw this poem as being solely about romantic love, and I see something deeper.  Unfortunately, I am not sufficiently versed in the secondary literature to be able to document any claims.  Anyone??Landrumkelly 16:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc.

message: I make no claim to be an expert, but, nevertheless, I would hope that an alternative viewpoint such as is found at
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/116
would at least be mentioned.  Here's part of that viewpoint:
"In addition, despite the idealism, there is an undercurrent of subversion which permeates all. It is ironic that a poem as famous as this should be seized on by the establishment as a declaration of their view of what love should be. Does the establishment view take account of the fact that this is a love poem written by a man to another man, and that the one impediment to their marriage is precisely that, for no church of the time, or scarcely even today, permits a man to marry a man?"--Wikifan2744 (talk) 07:20, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who is being addressed? 

message: I want to propose that the "Quatrain 2" section be cleaned up. For one thing, there are a number of statements about the meaning of the poem without any cited sources. But more importantly, I propose that we remove or substantially rewrite the following current edit: "This much astronomy Shakespeare seems to understand. Now we know its a yellow super-giant cepheid variable 2000 times brighter than the Sun, 433 light years away. Precession of the equinoxes means it will no longer be the closest bright star to our pole by the end of the 21st century. It's brightness varies by 4% in a four day cycle, scheduled to go supernova in 50 million years. Science has advanced but love still rules."
For one thing, most of this seems irrelevant to the meaning of the poem. When a poet writes a metaphor about a star, it is not useful or necessary for the article to discuss (or, in this case, mention out of context) all of the random scientific facts about that star, particularly those that were not even known when the poet was alive (or what current astrophysicists believe will happen to that star in 50 million years!). The final statement "science has advanced but love still rules" is vague and has a casual writing style that seems inappropriate for wikipedia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zither P. Oxblood (talk • contribs) 16:09, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and have thus removed that entire paragraph. --Xover (talk) 16:55, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quatrian 2