Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Quiz

Answer: Sonnet 116

Sonnet 18 begins "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" while Sonnet 2 kicks off with "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow." The opening line of Sonnet 23 is "As an unprefect actor on the stage..."

Answer: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Petrarchan sonnets consist of an octave (eight lines) rhyming ABBAABBA followed by a sested (six lines) rhyming either CDCDCD or CDECDE. A Spenserian sonnet rhymes ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. But the Shakespearean sonnet (also known as the Elizabethan sonnet or the English sonnet) is a variation of the Italian sonnet and rhymes ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Just a handful of Shakespeare's sonnets break this pattern, including Sonnet 99 (which has fifteen lines), Sonnet 126 (which has six couplets and two blank lines), and Sonnet 145 (which is written in iambic tetrameters instead of pentameters).

Answer: impediments

An impediment is a hindrance or obstruction to something. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets that were published together in a quarto in 1609. He also included sonnets in his plays "Romeo and Juliet", "Henry V", and "Love's Labour's Lost".

Answer: remove

Love stays true even when the beloved is not present. It does not fade with absence.

Shakespeare's sonnets were dedicated to a Mr. W.H. The identity of this individual is not known for certain and has given rise to much debate in literary circles. Perhaps he was a patron of Shakespeare's or a patron of the "faire youth" that is the subject of many of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Answer: tempests

While life may throw storms into the path of the lovers, true love will not be shaken during these trials. Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564 and grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire.

Answer: bark

A "wandering bark" is a small ship that has lost its way. Just as a lost ship can turn to the North Star for direction, people can look to true love as the fixed point from which to navigate their lives to a place of purpose.

Answer: Time's

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come."

Though youth and beauty may fade over time, true love is not deceived by that; it does not become a fool to time, but endures.

In the second line here, Shakespeare uses alliteration in "compass come".

Answer: doom

When he was 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children, a daughter named Susanna and twins named Judith and Hamnet. He became an actor and playwright and eventual part-owner of a the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which became the leading playing company in England.

Answer: writ

Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 and was laid to rest at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon. In his will, he left his wife Anne "my second best bed", which has caused much speculation among literary critics.

Answer: Marianne Dashwood

"My favourite is, without doubt, number 116," Marianne Dashwood, played by Kate Winslet, says in the 1995 film adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility." In the story, Marianne Dashwood is a passionate young woman and a bit overly romantic, but she learns the lesson of the poem - about the quite permanence of a mature love - by the end of the story.