Sonnet 17 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is the final poem of what are referred to by scholars as the procreation sonnets (Sonnets 1-17) with which the Fair Youth sequence opens. Sonnet 17 questions the poet's descriptions of the sequence's young man, believing that future generations will see these descriptions as exaggerations, if the youth does not make a copy of himself by fathering a child. As in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare shows himself to be hesitant about self-assured, flamboyant, and flowery proclamations of beauty.