mes godlike, omnipotent yet abstract. Love, too, becomes a powerful character, despite remaining physically intangible. Love is presented as an entity with supernatural qualities. This identity is everlasting, immortal, and unaffected be the passing of Time, which is also eternal. In many of Shakespeare's sonnets, Time is often portrayed as the destroyer of all that is happy and beautiful, because with time, everything changes, happiness fades and what was once beautiful fades away and then dies (Brown 79). The speaker claims that his love, real love, is untouched be the cruel hand of Time. Love, he says, is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken (Lines 5 and 6). According to Shakespeare, true Love is more permanent and powerful than Time, hence, love remains immutable despite the changes brought on by physical decay and despite changes wrought by the world, such as storms, wars and revolutions (Rowse, A Biography 67). Shakespeare further develops upon his ideas of love as a force which overcomes the restraints of physical existence in Sonnet number 130. In this poem, Shakespeare expands his definition of love to include an image of love as a force that overcomes social pressures.
             Shakespeare's speaker resists the conventions of his era's romantic poetry b
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