Shakespeare’s structural and formal techniques also emphasise the permanence of love. Love is even personified it is ‘not Time’s fool’, but is wiser than that, reinforcing the omnipotent presentation of love in this sonnet. The speaker notes that love ‘is an ever-fixed mark/that looks on tempests and is never shaken’, the awesome image of the tempest suggesting just how strong true love must be if it can withstand such a force.
The poem’s imagery contrasts nature and human values that may change over time – such as ‘rosy lips or cheeks’ – with the all-powerful force of love. In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare characterises love as a permanent and unending state.
