Do you agree that Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 'defines and redefines its subject in each quatrain and this subject becomes increasingly concrete, attractive and vulnerable’.

Given the length of the quotation, I would like to separate my answer into two parts. Firstly, the issue of defining and redefining the sonnet's subject, and secondly how compatible the terms 'concrete, attractive, and vulnerable' are. With regards to the first part of the question, we need to establish what the poem is defining; love. We then need to look at what techniques each quatrain of the sonnet defines love; the first by negation, the second by metaphor, and the third by personification. Through these different linguistic methods of definition, I would like to suggest that Shakespeare's sonnet attempts to find a 'concrete' definition, which his varying methods of definition inherently contradict. With regards to the second part of the question, we need to explore the inherent contradiction between the terms used; how can something be both 'concrete' and 'vulnerable'? I would like to explore this paradox through the Sonnet's use of the sonnet form, examining where the poem aligns with conventions of this rigid, 'concrete', poetic form, and where it deviates from them.