What is the meaning of Shakespeare's Sonnet 55?

I would just like to point out a beautiful use of language in one line of Shakespeare's Sonnet LV. This is to be found at the end of the line "When wasteful war shall statues overturn..." The normal syntax would be "When wasteful war shall overturn statues," but by reversing those two words Shakespeare creates a more vivid image of statues being toppled. The bottoms of these statues seem to come falling ahead of the tops.

It should be noted that Shelley does something similar in his "Ode to the West Wind" in the following two lines:

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

The normal syntax, of course, would be:

Thou, from whose unseen presence the dead leaves
Are driven, like ghosts fleeing from an enchanter.

The effect Shelley achieves by reversing the last two words of each of the above-quoted lines is--besides being a stroke of pure genius--to make the imaginary leaves seem to be tumbling over each other, so that those in back overtake the ones in front in their panic to flee from the invisible enchanter.

The beauty and the value of Shakespeare's sonnets is to be found in the words, the lines, the imagery, the conceits. These things are far more important than the answers to or guesses about such questions as "Whom was the speaker addressing?" or "Who was the dark lady?"

"Sonnet LV" by William Shakespeare has two themes: the passing of time and the immortalizing of a young man. The first half of Shakespeare's sonnets dealt with his love for a young man and forever keeping him alive through the sonnets that Shakespeare wrote.

This poem is narrated from the first person point of view.  The poet speaks directly to the youth referred to in the sonnet.  The tone of the poem is serious and confident in the ability of the sonnet to commemorate the youth's life.

The Shakespearean sonnet has fourteen lines with three quatrains[four lines] and a rhyming couplet or the last two lines.  The rhyme scheme follows this pattern: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Usually at line 9, the poem changes directions slightly in its theme.

The first quatrain points up the idea that neither royal marble or gold monuments will be able to outline the power of poetry.  The young man will out shine even the graveyard stones that are damaged by the elements and time. 

But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

The second quatrain accentuates that when the destructive wars are fought and damages art work and statues  and the battles ruin the work  of the architects and the brick masons...neither the Roman god of war nor his mighty weapons who cause the wars to break out and fires caused in battle...none of these things will burn away the memory of your life.

The third quatrain speaks to the fact that the young man will outlive death and oblivion in the eyes of future generations and even until the end of time.

The final couplet states that when Judgment day comes, you will be taken by Christ to heaven; until then,  you will live on in this sonnet and in the eyes of lovers.

Shakespeare did understand the power of the written word. It has been over four hundred years since the poem was written, and the Sonnet LV about the young man is still being read.

What is the theme of Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare?

The theme of this sonnet is actually a theme that concerns many of Shakespeare's sonnets: that of the immortality of his beloved in the face of time and the way that commemorating his beloved's beauty in verse creates that immortality. Note the way that the first two lines indicate this by stating clearly that no "gilded monuments" or statues of marble can "outlive this powerful rhyme." Statues and such monuments that are created to commemorate the lives of famous people are fated to be destroyed and to be "besmear'd with slutting time." However, the monument that Shakespeare erects to his beloved in the form of this poem is untouchable:

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.

Thus this poem will allow the speaker's beloved to "pace forth" against death and oblivion until the end of "this world" and judgement day. The last couplet cements this overall theme of immortality through art:

So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

Shakespeare thus has given the gift of eternal life to his beloved through giving him life "in this," the poem that we read today, signifying the truth of his words.

What is the subject matter of Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare?

If I had to attempt to capture the entire subject matter of this one particular sonnet in two words and only two words, I might go with "poetry power." This particular sonnet has a speaker talking directly to a beloved person, and the poem starts with a powerful boast about the supposed longevity of this sonnet. We are told that marble and princely monuments will not out last this particular poem. That's a huge boast because stone being moved through the rock cycle is an incredibly time consuming process. Marble will last a long time. There is more to this sonnet. It is a poem of praise for the power of the poem, but it is also a praise for its power to preserve the memory of she speaker's beloved. The beloved will live inside the sonnet's words. Those words will last forever; therefore, the beloved will last forever.

So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

The subject matter of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55, “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments …” is that of the importance of poetry. He argues that poetry in general, and this poem in particular, will survive until the Last Judgement, or the end of the world. Sculpture, made of rock, considered the most durable substance in the chain of being, can be destroyed, and was can kill all the individuals who know the addressee of the poem, but the addressee will be remembered until the end of time, as the beloved of the poet (if not for other things) because the poem will survive.

What is the subject matter of Shakespeare's Sonnet 55?

Shakespeare’s sonnet 55 is one of many poems in his collection of sonnets that deal with the theme of mutability, or the constant change and instability that are typical of life on earth. Mutability was a favorite theme of writers during the middle ages and the Renaissance, and sonnet 55 is one of the classic expressions of this idea. At the same time, the poem also emphasizes another key idea from this period – the idea that being celebrated in great poetry can help the person extolled in such poetry to cheat mutability (including death) by giving him or her a reputation that will last forever.  Yet Shakespeare ends this poem with a clever twist, suggesting that the only way to achieve true immortality and transcendence is to be saved at the end of time by God.

In the opening section of the poem, the speaker argues that neither marble nor the gold-covered monuments erected by (or to celebrate) royalty will outlast the powerful poetry that the poet is offering the addressee (a young man). The addressee will be more visible within the contents of this poetry than any neglected stone (perhaps a marker on a grave) that has become less visible thanks to the effects of time, which is compared to an unkempt whore.

Next, the speaker tells the young man that even though war can lead to the destruction of statues erected in honor of previously powerful people, and even though conflict can destroy strongly constructed buildings made of stone, neither the sword of Mars (a symbol of war) not the raging fires common during wars will destroy other people’s memories of the young man.  The young man will continue to live within the minds of any people who read the poet’s sonnets celebrating him.

The young man will thus defy death as well as the hatred of anyone who might wish that he will be neglected. The young man will be praised all the way to the end of time (“Even in the eyes of all posterity”) and right up to the “ending doom” of Judgment Day.  This kind of claim – that a great writer, through great writing, could help the person celebrated in such writing enjoy a permanently good reputation – was quite common during the Renaissance.  Less common, however, was the twist Shakespeare gives the idea in his poem’s final two lines:

So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

In other words, the poet can promise only a kind of immortality that will finally seem far less important than the true immortality that can be bestowed only by God during the final judgment. Only God can cause dead human beings literally to “arise” from their graves and ascend into heaven. (Conversely, only God can finally cast the unworthy into hell, although the poet does not openly make this point; it is, if anything, merely implied.)

This ending to the poem is highly significant because it helps undercut the poet’s pride in his own powers. For the first twelve lines of the poem, the speaker has come very close to boasting about his own abilities. In the final two lines, however, he suddenly reminds us that there is a God whose power is far greater than that of any mere human author.  

What is the meaning of Sonnet 55?

Shakespeare begins sonnet 55 with the profound declaration that the stone upon which the sonnet is carved will out last the living, but confidently asserts that “You” will  "outlive this mere stonework" of the sonnet.  Nothing, not even war or time can destroy the sonnet, but “God's Judgment Day places a limit on the sonnet's power to transcend those natural, historical, and human forces that diminish and dissolve memorials carved in stone.” The original form of the sonnet will remain until that final reckoning, when the beloved youth will surely be resurrected, in order to touch hearts of those who read it. In my opinion, I wonder if the is maybe some symbol of Jesus Christ?  I may be totally off base here, but, hey it is open for interpretation, right?  Please check the link below for a more detailed analysis of this sonnet.  It is wonderfully helpful.

I'd like to give you a paraphrased, line-by-line translation of the poem, so you're able to compare Shakespeare's language to our modern version. I assume you have a copy of the original poem.

Not marble, nor the gold-plated shrines
Of princes shall outlive the power of poetry;
You shall shine more bright in these verses
Than on dust-covered gravestones,ravaged by time. When devastating war shall overturn statues,
And conflicts destroy the mason's handiwork,
The cause of war (Mars) nor the effects of war (fire) shall destroy
The living record of your memory (this poem).
Against death and destruction that causes people to be forgotten,
You will push onward; you will always be praised,
Even in the eyes of future generations
That survive until the end of humanity.
So, until judgment day, when you will rise again
You live in this poetry, and people will still love you.

Explaining the sonnet in this way helps my students to be able to better understand Shakespearean language. This is a translation I've had for a few years. Hopefully, it helps you as well.

The basic idea of the sonnet is that poetry is eternal, and whoever a poet chooses to write about becomes eternal/immortal along with the poem.  In Sonnet 55, Shakespeare goes through images of war, kingdoms, and structures which will all die away, but he claims the words he writes to his love will live on forever.  For more information about the imagery, check out the link below.

Explain the themes and significance of Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare.

Sonnet 55 most likely has two purposes, the most important being to insure the poet's lover that his or her beauty will outlive time and events and, less important, to claim the primacy of the written word.

The first quatrain establishes the power of the poem to make the lover's beauty remembered for all time:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/Of Princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;/But you shall shine more bright in these contents. . . .

In other words, poetry will outlive marble and gilded (surfaced by gold) monuments, and the lover's beauty will shine more brightly in these verses than monuments that have deteriorated over time ("besmear'd with sluttish time"--"sluttish" meaning "sloppy").

Not only will the lover's beauty outlive the ravages of time, but also such events as war and other conflicts will not effect the poem's ability to memorialize the lover for all time (ll.5-8).

In the third quatrain, Shakespeare takes on the most serious threats to the permanence of his lover's beauty:

'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.

Even death--and any other thing that would erase the lover's beauty ("all-oblivious enmity")--cannot keep the lover's beauty from being acknowledged by people of all time ("eyes of all posterity") until doomsday.

The couplet confirms the assertion in lines 11 and 12 that, until the lover is summoned from the grave on Judgment Day, the lover lives both in the poem and in the eyes of all other lovers.

What is Shakespeare's message in Sonnet 55?

This excellent sonnet is preoccupied with a common concern that runs throughout Shakespeare's collection of Sonnets: how poetry can give immortality to the beauty and love of the person that the sonnet is written to. Note how this sonnet begins by comparing the ability of this poem to preserve the beauty of the loved one to the "gilded monuments / Of princes." The speaker asserts that:

But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

The poem here is being compared to one of those "gilded monuments" in its ability to preserve. However, the poem will exist eternally, compared to the monuments that, through the ravages of "sluttish time" are destined to destruction. As the poem continues the speaker develops this theme. War will overturn statues and destroy them, rendering the memory of the great people they were supposed to commemorate obsolete. However, being captured in verse spares the memory of the loved one. The final couplet clinches this theme of the poem:

So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

Being remembered through this poem assures that the loved one that is addressed in this poem will "live on" until the end of time itself and judgement day.