Lasting Love in Shakespeare

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“So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day” (Sparks). Being in a relationship is tough now days, and apparently couples in the older times still went through the same types of situations couples today go through. Everyone has their disagreements, and couples never know what life will throw their way. After being with someone for so long, one is bound to have a few fights, but true love perseveres. When reading “Marriage of True Minds” by William Shakespeare and listening to “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz, readers and listeners are showed time and time again that love can make it through anything. Both the poem and the song represent the same idea and theme that true love is tough. While “I Won’t Give Up” focuses more on telling what he will do for her and why he is doing it, “Marriage of True Minds” explains all the aspects of what love really is or should be.
Even though Shakespeare’s sonnet 116, “Marriage of True Minds” was published in 1609, one can still find many songs that are much similar to the poem. In Jason Mraz’s song, “I Won’t Give Up” the same theme of tough love is presented throughout both pieces followed by a few other smaller similarities that have the same idea. The first similarity between the two is that love should not stop when two are not together. In “Marriage of True Minds” Shakespeare gives readers the lines, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,” (Shakespeare 892). These lines mean that love does not alter with time but grows stronger with every second. However long you are apart should not compare to all the time you have had together, and the ...

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...girl what he will do to get her back, Shakespeare knows exactly what love is, and even tells us in the end that if he is wrong then he has never written anything accurate and that no man has ever loved. While Shakespeare seems so sure in himself, Mraz has doubts. Readers and listeners can learn from both the poem and the song that love has always been the same. Over 400 years ago to today, one knows for certain, that love has got to be tough.

Works Cited

Aristotle. "Love Is Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Mraz, Jason. “I Won’t Give Up.” AZLyrics.com. AZLyrics.com. 2014. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Shakespeare, William. “Marriage of True Minds.” The Norton Introduction to Literature Shorter Eleventh Edition. 11th ed. Ed Kelly. J. Mays. New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 892. Print.
Sparks, Nicholas. "Quotes." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

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