William Shakespeare's Sonnet 81

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.


This is one of my favourite sonnets, invoking the idea of an immortal life through writing. Looking at it again for the upteenth time, Shakespeare seems not only to immortalise his addressed through language and pen but also through the eyes, tongues and months of men in generations to come. The act of creating materiality through literary, his addressed is resurrected again just as Shakespeare will be when we recreate his works.