This must be one of the most well known sonnets by Shakespeare as I feel like I heard it long before I had any idea what a sonnet really was. I would probably guess that this is because of the sort of "mushy" love theme of the poem and peoples' tendency to put romance and poetry hand-in-hand. Up until we starting learning about the sonnets, I probably never would have guessed that the speaker wrote this poem to another man. However, in the context of the time it wouldn't truly be so odd. Shakespeare writes, "summer's lease hath all too short a date" which is saying that summer ends quickly, and because of that fact, is suggesting that the subject is better that this season. The sonnet says with "every fair from fair sometime declines" that every good thing eventually loses what makes it great. The man, on the other hand, will never lose his greatness like summer does because he will at the least live forever in the words of this very sonnet.
Besides that we don't necessarily know the subject's exact identity, Shakespeare's claim stands true.
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