Sonnet 55
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The first two stanzas of Sonnet 55 in the 1609 Quarto
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Q1
Q2
Q3
C
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; 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, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
4
8
12
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Sonnet 55 is one of the best and most critically acclaimed sonnets of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence.
Sonnet 55 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the form's typical rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The fifth line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: The final word of line three is stressed conténts, even though it bears the meaning of modern cóntents. In line two "powerful" has two syllables; in line nine "oblivious" has three; in line ten "even" has one.
According to many scholars, sonnet 55 is a poem about time and immortalization. The speaker claims that his beloved will wear out this world to the ending doom. According to Alison Scott, the speaker's poem won't last much compared to his beloved, even though his beloved is immortalised in the poem, adhering to a larger theme of giving and possessing that runs through many of Shakespeare's sonnets. David Kaula, however, emphasizes the concept of time slightly differently. He argues that the sonnet traces the progression of time, from the physical endeavours built by man (monuments, statues, masonry), as well as the primeval notion of warfare depicted through the image of "Mars his sword" and "war's quick fire", to the concept of the Last Judgment. The young man will survive all of these things through the verses of the speaker.
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