Audiobook · read by volunteers
Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Read by Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010), Andrea L, Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Denny Sayers (d. 2015), Ezwa, JemmaBlythe, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Kirsten Ferreri, Karen Savage, Martin Clifton · 17 chapters · 19 min
About the book
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is one of the most quoted poems in English, and it is also one of the most beautifully compact: fourteen lines on the idea of a love that stays fixed through storms, time and change. Here are seventeen different readings of it, each recorded by a volunteer for a weekly poetry project. Some voices are solemn, others joyful, a few almost conversational, and every reader finds a slightly different emphasis in the same famous phrases. Listening to several in a row makes the sonnet unfold like a piece of music played by many performers. The whole set lasts under twenty minutes, and you can pick a single version or listen to them all. Ideal for weddings, anniversaries or anyone who would like to hear a classic in a new light.
Introduction
William Shakespeare, who lived from 1564 to 1616, is best known for his plays, but he also wrote a sequence of 154 sonnets, published in 1609. Sonnet 116 is among the most admired of them. In fourteen lines it defines love by saying what it is not: it does not change when circumstances change, and it is not at the mercy of time. Instead it is described as a fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken, an image taken from sailors’ navigation.
Because it is so familiar, the poem is often heard at weddings, but readers have also noted that it can be taken in more than one way, as an ideal, a challenge or even a note of doubt. This is part of what makes it so rewarding to hear in different voices. The language is four centuries old, yet its rhythm is clear, and the final couplet is among the most memorable endings in English poetry.
The recordings in this collection were made by LibriVox volunteers as part of the weekly poetry project, in which one short text is chosen and anyone may contribute a reading. The week of this poem was in mid October 2006. Seventeen versions were recorded, by volunteers including Alan Davis Drake, Andrea L and Annie Coleman Rothenberg.
Each version is brief, and the whole collection lasts under twenty minutes. It is a pleasing way to spend time with a masterpiece and to see how many different performances a single page of verse can support. It is a rewarding set for students, too, because it shows in a practical way that a poem is also a performance, and that the same fourteen lines can sound solemn, tender or defiant.
Public domain
William Shakespeare died in 1616: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text