Sonnet 77

Sonnet 77 is one of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, and part of the Fair Youth sequence (sonnets 1-126). The sonnet focuses on the importance of recording one's thoughts and observations, especially with the passage of time and the encroachment of age. The poem is understood as a gift, likely of a notebook, to the Fair Youth, encouraging him to combat the ravages of time and mortality through consistent journaling and self-reflection.

The speaker encourages the recipient to use the book to record impressions of the present, which will become a precious record of the past. Further, the sonnet urges the recipient to contemplate the wrinkles that time will inevitably etch on his face, the empty spaces time leaves in the heart, and the knowledge that experience will bring, filling the "book" of the mind. By constantly engaging with these themes, the recipient can, in a sense, conquer time's destructive power through memorialization and continual renewal of the self through writing. The poem concludes with the idea that time can be defeated by remembering the past and learning from it. The act of writing itself is presented as a means of preserving youth, beauty, and experience.