Shakespeare had multiple goals in mind when he sat down to create one of his masterpieces. Whether it was a sonnet or play, much of his work was dedicated to his patron, the Earl of South Hampton, named William Herbert. In the introduction to The Complete Sonnets and Poems, it states that Herbert "Would have been about the right age to serve as the addressee for many of the poems" (page 100). It also states that sonnets 1-17 are known to be called the "marriage sequence," composed on or around Herbert's seventeenth birthday, and dedicated to him along with works such as Venus and Adonis. During the "marriage sequence," the main theme of procreation and beauty is present. If these 17 poems were directed at the Earl of South Hampton, why would Shakespeare have written them the way that he did, convincing the Earl of his duties of passing on both his beauty and a son?
             When reading these poems, it seems that Shakespeare's motivation for writing them may have been to win the favor, and with it the patronage of the Earl of South Hampton. One possible way to win the favor of the Earl would have been to brown-nose him. Shakespeare could have used many methods of kissing up to the Ear, but the method that Shakespeare chose was to overwhelm the Earl with comments about his beauty. In the first line of the first sonnet of the marriage sequence, Shakespeare says to the Earl, "From fairest creatures, we desire increase, which thereby beauty's rose may never die." Immediately, Shakespeare is telling the Earl how beautiful he is, and that the world desires more people like him. He tells him that if he has a child, it will prolong his beauty and be like a rose that would never die.
             Throughout the other poems, Shakespeare does not hesitate to tell the Earl of South Hampton how beautiful he is.
             "But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
             And kept unused the user so destroys it:
             No love toward others in that bosom sits hat on...