Sonnet 116 just might be one of the most quoted and most loved of Shakespeare's many sonnets. And, of course, it's all about love: love is an "ever-fixed mark," even against Time's "bending sickle's compass."
Brooks and Warren print this sonnet in Understanding Poetry, and ask some questions about it in the New Critical style. They asked things like: What sort of images are implied and developed in this poem? How are the images related? Are the images all in agreement, or in tension or conflict?
And how do you understand the line, "Love's not Time's fool?" Or the image of Time's "bending sickle's compass"? Why "compass"? Why a "sickle"? Why, why, why?
(Sometimes embracing the New Critics' way of reading poems can feel a little like talking with a toddler. But, you know, a super smart toddler who knows how to ask why about all the right things…)