Point of View

Sonnet 116 has an unusual point of view for a sonnet. Typically, sonnets have a close first-person point of view and also make use of second-person. Essentially, they are written as love poems from one person (the speaker) to another person (the subject). This poem is in the first person, but it does not follow this typical structure.

The speaker’s location is established in the very first line — “let me not,” thus declaring that there is a character here, with a perspective on what is going on (1). Indeed, the poem that follows is very much that individual’s view of love, a description of what someone thinks. In the philosophical sense, it is an argument. However, it can also be quite difficult to determine exactly what the speaker’s relationship to the subject of this poem is. Is he part of this “marriage of true...