19 pages • 38 minutes read
William ShakespeareSonnet 55
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Memorialization
“Sonnet 55” presents several forms of memorialization. The poem opens with the image of marble and gilded monuments, immediately comparing these to the poem. But Shakespeare also uses the image of a gravestone, calling it an “unswept” (Line 4) stone. Next, Shakespeare uses the image of statues and the brickwork of a mason. Finally, Shakespeare returns to the way the poem memorializes the subject, saying, “’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity / Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room” (Lines 9-10).
The focus on memorialization matches the poem’s focus on life and living. Though the poem is concerned with death and uses the image of time to show how death comes to us all, Shakespeare shows how memorialization is one method to subvert death. By memorializing people, we extend their life beyond the years they actually live. For Shakespeare, this is an important task he must fill as a poet and admirer of the fair youth. Memorialization is a form of legacy, and the poem is the best way Shakespeare knows to create that legacy.
It’s also interesting to note how Shakespeare contrasts the memorialization of great figures from history versus how he memorializes the anonymous fair youth. While the great monuments of stone, gold, and brick dedicated to royals and war heroes will one day fall, this poem, written by a commoner and about a commoner, will last until the final judgment. There is a kind of arrogance in this sentiment as well as a slight against the excessiveness of powerful people in England at the time. Some of these royal tombs were incredibly over the top, so there is some irony in the fact that Shakespeare’s modest poem, 14 lines on a page, outlasted some of these lavish structures.
Poetry’s Immortality
Similar to the theme of memorialization, Shakespeare makes clear the fact that poetry is an immortal life form that outlives all other forms of creation. Shakespeare even gives poetry a kind of religious reverence near the end of the poem. He argues,
your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this […]” (Lines 10-14).
In these lines, Shakespeare turns the poem into a kind of avatar for the subject; a form of reincarnation or a host body for the fair youth until the subject’s actual body rises on judgment day.
Not only does the poem serve as a host for the subject’s memory, but it also inspires the subject’s image in lovers’ eyes. The phrasing of this at the end of the poem is vague, but it suggests that by reading the poem, the image of the subject will gain more hosts: the eyes of the lovers who read the poem. This gives poetry not only an immortal quality, but also the power to spread ideas and images into people’s minds.
This romantic view of poetry and its power isn’t unique to this poem. Shakespeare expresses this view in other writings, most famously in “Sonnet 18,” where he argues that the subject of that poem will live forever simply because Shakespeare has captured his beauty in a poem.
The Power of Time
While the poem attributes great power to poetry, it gives that same power to time, which it argues is the ultimate arbiter of life, death, and what is remembered versus what is forgotten. Time acts upon the monuments created by men that honor themselves. Time brings war, death, loss of memory, and change. Time cloaks everything in the poem (except for the fair youth) in negative language. Words like “besmeared,” “sluttish,” “unswept,” “broils,” and “wasteful” (Lines 4, 5, 6) describe the monuments that do not depict the fair youth. Time desecrates these monuments. It erases them from history in violent ways.
Yet the poem is also concerned with outliving known time and staying alive till the return of Christ at the end of the world. Whereas Shakespeare uses negative diction when describing what he thinks are futile attempts to live beyond death, he uses positive language when talking about the fair youth. He uses words like “bright,” “living,” “praise,” and “lovers” (Lines 3, 10, 14). This juxtaposition of positive and negative diction shows how time has the power to kill and to bring life. Poetry must work with time in order to give life where there is none—to keep alive those who have already died. Time allows for memory, and memory, according to the poem, is as powerful as life itself.
One of the ways Shakespeare highlights the power of time is by personifying it, giving it purpose and intent. And by giving time the weapon of death to wield, Shakespeare makes time a formidable opponent for his poem to overcome. But overcome it the poem does, as evidenced by the fact that now, hundreds of years later, the poem is still read and studied.
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By William Shakespeare
