page_title: Sonnet 72
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: Sonnet 72 / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573-1624) Miniature painting, sometimes thought to have been the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets (1573-1624).
context_page_description: Sonnet 72 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is one of the Fair Youth Sequence, which includes Sonnet 1 through Sonnet 126.
context_section_description: Sonnet 71 through Sonnet 74 group together as a sequence due to their dark, brooding tone, and the poet's obsession with his own mortality and legacy. The sequence begins in Sonnet 71 with "No longer mourn for me when I am dead" and ends with "And that is this, and this with thee remains" in Sonnet 74. Sonnet 72 is one of 126 Sonnets coined "The Fair Youth Sequence". The identity of said "Fair Youth" remains a mystery. Several scholars point, in particular to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke.
caption: Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton at 21. Shakespeare's patron, and one candidate for the Fair Youth of the sonnets.
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