Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
INTRODUCTION:
Sonnet 1 is one of Shakespeare's 'Procreation Sonnets' addressed to Fair Youth which insists the youth to marry and have children to pass on his beautiful genes to next generation thereby. Procreation and immortality are recurring themes in this sonnet.
The sonnet follows traditional sonnet form of iambic pentameter.
SUMMARY:
Shakespeare expresses his dissatisfaction at the Fair Youth and his obsession with his own beauty. When his beauty can decline with time, he can marry and have children. Then his children will bear testimony to his beauty. And thus his beauty becomes immortal.
Obsessed with his own beauty, the youth becomes his own enemy depriving the future of his beauty. When the world can avail abundance of his beauty, he forces it to famine.
The mention of 'spring' season implies procreation and the possibility of reproduction of his own beauty. The poet reminds the youth of his obligation to transmit his beauty to the next generation. If he refuses to do so, he will be remembered for his denial to do so, but never for his beauty.
