Sonnet 102

Sonnet 102, which can also be titled “My love is strengthened, though more week in seeming,” is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. These sonnets “represent practically the only personal statement which has been left to us by one of the greatest figures of the world’s literature.” The first 126 sonnets have been classified by scholars as the Fair Youth sequence; thus, sonnet 102 is likely addressed to this “young man, possessed of beauty, birth, wealth, and wit,” who is also described as “a patron of poets and writers.” The speaker’s main goal in this sonnet is to express the continuation of love over time. That the speaker does not reveal the depth of his love is due to its never-ceasing power; he does not wish to cheapen its sentiments nor bore the object of his affection.