Sonnet 55 (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Shakespeare
- First Published: 1609
- Type of Work: Sonnet
- Genres: Poetry, Sonnet
- Subjects: Immortality, Authors or writers, Art or artists, Poetry or poets, England or English people, Time, Mortality, Shakespeare, William, or Shakespearean plays, Monuments, Statues
The Poem
Sonnet 55 is one of a collection of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare and expresses one of the major themes of these sonnets: Poetry is eternal and will immortalize the subject of the poem. The tone of the first quatrain, or first four lines, reflects the extreme confidence of the poet: His “powerful rhyme” is compared to durable marble and solid, gilded memorials that mark the graves of princes. The monuments for the Elizabethan royals and aristocracy often consisted of a full-length portrait of the deceased carved in high relief on the stone cover of a...
[The entire page is 1565 words long]
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