Sonnet 55

Shakespeare’s major goal in “Sonnet 55” is to immortalize the fair youth through poetry.

One way Shakespeare expresses this focus on the fair youth’s ability to outlive death is through the language he uses in the poem, particularly the repetition of the word “live.” Shakespeare first uses the word “live” in Line 2 when he says his subject will outlive the monuments of princes. He repeats the word in Line 8 when he describes the poem as the “living memory” of his subject. More subtly, Shakespeare then writes “‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity” (Line 9). This line is ironic because Shakespeare encodes the word “live” in the word “oblivious,” and the line describes the force that threatens the youth’s memory (death) while expressing the idea that this enemy will not defeat the youth, as he will “pace forth” (Line 10). Finally, the final line of the poem reads, “You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes” (Line 14). The repetition of the word live throughout the poem—and especially at the beginning and end of it—alerts us to Shakespeare’s thematic concerns in the sonnet. While the poem uses the