What's Up With the Title?:
Guys, don't judge a poem by its title. Come on, "Sonnet 55" doesn't exactly get your heart racing with anticipation. In fact, it conveys almost no information at all. Basically, it lets us know that 54 sonnets are ahead in the sonnet cycle pecking order and, if you happen to already know that Shakespeare produced 154, that 99 others follow. Yes, we are good at math. But can we glean anything else?
Since Shakespeare's sonnet cycle chronicles a love affair, with Sonnets 1-126 giving the lowdown on his fair youth infatuation and Sonnets 127-152 kicking in with the dark lady era, that means that Sonnet 55 is definitely in the fair youth stage. But without actually, you know, reading the freaking sonnet, you're not going to find out a lot more.