Shakespeare's Sonnet Number 126: Critique Shakespeare's sonnets, as poems, have been obscured by the enormous amount of speculation, much of it unjustified, that has grown up around the problems presented by the dedication. The following sonnet is commonly grouped with 125 others that are believed to have been written to a much admired young man, who was Shakespeare's junior in both years and social status. The form in which the poem is written is often referred to as Shakespearean or English form. As in most of Shakespeare's sonnets the argument proceeds by quatrains.