Of all Shakepeare's works, sonnets seem best to portray this word marriage from past and present. Not only do the words and style of the sonnet show this transition of time, but the era in which it was created was a great transitory time as well.

Gutenberg had invented the printing press over a hundred years previous, but the full benefits of that marvelous invention had just begun to be felt by the time Shakespeare arrived on the literary scene.

Shakepeare's sonnets especially brought those benefits to full fruition. Sonnet 116...

Shakespeare writes of the love struck soul who 'is never shaken' and even to death finds that love 'it is an ever-fixed mark'. He then ends the sonnet by stating with tongue in cheek that there is very little possibility of him being proven wrong in his statements. He was well-known for ending sonnets in such a manner, seemingly always with a twist of humor. Perhaps that is why the genre he had such influence over became more than just the genre of bards and poets, but of lovers of life as well.