Sonnet 106 - Catch 22

Early in the poem he seems to feel as if the Pertrarchan love poems of the past, which extensively detailed all the breathtaking features of their subjects must have been speaking of his love. This aura of perfection could only be accomplished by her, as if she was in fact literally one of a kind when it came to beauty. But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Basically, Shakespeare is trying to say that the English language is unable to portray the beauty exuded by the subject of this poem, and that to truly comprehend how gorgeous she is, you have to see her. You can't do her the injustice of describing her in mere words. In doing so, he takes a knock at some poets of the past, saying that to truly give your audience a sense that someone is perfect, you have to manipulate your words to place that person above the highest level of beauty that you can achieve through your own writing. Shakespeare seems to be mock ing earlier Petrarchan poets for well... "over-writing."

Hence the Catch-22: In this poem, Shakespeare says that to truly be a great writer, sometimes you can (or should) not write. However, writing sonnets like this one is what helped make Shakespeare arguably the greatest writer in human history. The moral? It's nice to be able to sign your work: "William Shakespeare."