Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments is the first line of Sonnet 55 by the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is often considered the world’s greatest playwright. He also ranks as one of the leading poets in the English language. See Shakespeare, William.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were printed in 1609, when the poet was already a well-established playwright. The dates of the poems are unknown. Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets over a period of years. There are 154 sonnets in the sequence, though some scholars believe that a different author may have written Sonnets 153 and 154, those focused on Cupid, the Roman god of love. Only two of the sonnets appeared before 1609, in a book of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599).
Like almost all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 55 consists of three quatrains (four-line units) followed by a concluding couplet (two-line unit). Each quatrain has a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, with the final couplet a rhyming one (gg).
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 besmeared 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.
Sonnet 55 is one of the best known of Shakespeare’s sonnets. It is one of a small but distinctive number of sonnets that uses Shakespeare’s own poetry as the subject. Like the other sonnets in the first 126, Sonnet 55 is addressed to an unidentified nobleman. This friend is the object of the poet’s love and admiration and is the chief inspiration for the sonnets in the group. In Sonnet 55, Shakespeare proclaims the value of his own “powerful rhyme” to protect his friend’s qualities from the ravages of time.
Most critics agree that Shakespeare shows the influence of the classical poets in this sonnet. In particular, he appears to allude to quotations from the Latin poets Horace and Ovid, who were familiar to many readers of his day and who had grandly proclaimed the immortality of their own poetry as “monuments” against time. (See Horace; Ovid.) Shakespeare borrows this convention and even refers to some of the imagery used by Horace and Ovid. However, Shakespeare uses these classical echoes to immortalize his friend rather than himself. Praise for the beloved friend, rather than for the poet, will concern “all posterity.”
Critics have frequently noted the modesty and privateness of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Although the art of poetry is often an underlying theme, it is frequently hidden in elaborate word play and imagery. Even the young nobleman to whom the 126 sonnets are addressed remains a shadowy figure. His beauty and attributes are repeatedly proclaimed but never specifically detailed. In this sonnet, Shakespeare depicts the horrors of “sluttish time” more vividly than the characteristics of the friend to be immortalized. Shakespeare instead makes a general and sweeping notion of “living” memory in his tribute to his friend. He depicts an ever-moving figure, pacing through time, defeating “oblivious enmity”—meaning both death (oblivion) and disregard for memory (obliviousness).
For more information on the sonnets, see Shakespeare, William (Shakespeare’s poems). See also English literature (Elizabethan poetry); Poetry (Forms) (Renaissance poetry).
