Sonnet 101 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man. The three other internal sequences include the procreation sonnets (1–17), the Rival Poet sequence (78–86) and the Dark Lady sequence (127–154). While the exact date of composition of Sonnet 101 is unknown, scholars generally agree that the group of Sonnets 61–103 was written mainly in the first half of the 1590s and was not revised before being published with the complete sequence of sonnets in the 1609 Quarto. Synopsis The Muse is chided for her absence and neglect of praise for the youth. The poet-speaker goes further, imagining the Muse responding that truth and beauty need no additions or explanations. The Muse is implored by the poet to praise the youth. The poet will teach her how to immortalize the youth's beauty. Structure Sonnet 101 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 11th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: × / × / × / × / × / To make him much outlive a gilded tomb (101.11) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. The 7th line has a common metrical variation, an initial reversal: / × × / × / × / × / Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay; (101.7) Initial reversals are potentially present in lines 6 and 12, and a mid-line reversal ("what shall") is potentially present in line 1. The parallelism of "seem" and "shows" in the final line suggest a rightward movement of the fourth ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic): × / × / × / × × / / To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now. (101.14) While Petrarchan sonnets by tradition have a volta at the end of line eight, in Shakespeare's sonnets this can occur as late as line 12 and sometimes not at all. In Sonnet 101, a volta seems to occur at the end of line eight,