"In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare considers time as the great adversary to love." Elucidate.

The quote you have given could actually be used as the
basis to discuss a number of Shakespeare's sonnets, which seem to place the passing of
time in conflict with the beauty of the object of the speaker's affections and their
love. However, famously, this poem seems to capture this conflict in its evocation of
what "true love" should be in a relationship, pointing towards an eternal, unchanging
sense of love that remains constant in spite of whatever damage time may do. Consider
what love is said not to be, and then what it is said to
be:

Love is
not love

Which alters when it alteration
finds,

Or bends with the remover to
remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed
mark

That looks on tempests and is never
shaken;

Love is therefore
described as unchanging and not impacted by the changing landscape around it wrought by
time. In particular, love is said not to be "Time's fool," even though beauty obviously
comes under the power of time in the way that it fades so fast. Even though beauty and
physical appearance may change thanks to the power of time, true love remains unchanged
in the face of such decay:

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Love alters not with his brief hours and
weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of
doom.

Note the way in which
these lines place love in direct conflict with time, in the form of "brief hours and
weeks." Thus, although this sonnet clearly places love and time in conflict, it is
obvious that true love is never seriously threatened by the power of time, because true
love is eternal and will carry on "even to the edge of doom." Whilst time has power over
our appearance and age, true love renders such transformations as
meaningless.