How is love characterised in William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116?

In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare characterises love as a permanent and unending state. 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. 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.  Love is even personified; it is ‘not Time’s fool’, but is wiser than that, reinforcing the omnipotent presentation of love in this sonnet.

Shakespeare’s structural and formal techniques also emphasise the permanence of love. Words are often repeated, such as ‘love is not love’ or ‘the remover to remove’. This creates a sense of coupling which evokes the eternal union of the speaker and their beloved, as well as putting greater emphasis on the sentiment of these phrases. The sonnet form itself also uses coupling, with the ABABCDCDEFEF structure of the first twelve lines creating a sense of unity which is heightened further in the final rhyming couplet. This couplet’s claim that if love is not as Shakespeare’s speaker describes he ‘never writ, nor no man ever lov'd’ acknowledges that there is a reader who must be persuaded of love’s power. It also makes the poem itself into evidence that Shakespeare’s characterisation is accurate.