Time as Villain

The dominant theme across the sequence is time destroying beauty. Youth fades, beauty wrinkles, desire cools. Against this universal enemy, Shakespeare offers two defenses: children (who carry beauty into the next generation) and poetry (which preserves the beloved in language that outlasts marble and stone).

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Shakespeare was right — the person he wrote about is dust, but the poem is still alive. He promised immortality through verse and actually delivered it, which may be the most extraordinary claim any poet has ever made good on.