Shakespeare, usually identified with his large body of plays both dramatic and comedic, but what about his poetry?  While his plays are poetic, he did have this body of works strictly in the poetic realm.  Shakespeare's first published works were two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).  The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) was a collected volume of poetry that was attributed to William Shakespeare, however, only five of the poems are truly thought to be written by Shakespeare himself.  A series of other poems were published in subsequent years, like The Phoenix and the Turtle, Love's Labour's Lost, and possibly a poem entitled A Funeral Elegy.

     The Sonnets, however, are his most important endeavor into the realm of poetry and the subject of this webpage and also the subject to much controversy among scholars.  The Sonnets were first published in 1609, but the first copies were distributed privately and probably date in which The Sonnets were written were somewhere in the 1590's.  What makes the Sonnets so much debated is the order of the poems and the autobiographical content of the poems.

The Sonnets themselves deal with themes of beauty, the changing face of beauty as it becomes ravaged with time, and love and the ability of love to transcend time, age, changes, and even death.  Read the sonnets carefully for the recurring themes, but most of all, enjoy the poetry...read it aloud...or send them to someone you love.