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Shakespeare's poems

Shakespeare wrote two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Both are narrative poems—that is, they tell a story. Shakespeare also composed a sequence of 154 sonnets, which concludes with a short poem called “A Lover’s Complaint.” He contributed another short lyric, “The Phoenix and the Turtle,” to an anthology of poetry titled Love’s Martyr (1601).

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The narrative poems

Venus and Adonis (1593) draws on the Metamorphoses, a collection of tales in verse by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. The poem tells how Venus, the goddess of love, tries to win the love of the handsome young mortal Adonis. He resists her and is finally killed by a wild boar while hunting.

Shakespeare wrote Venus and Adonis in six-line stanzas. Most of the lines are iambic pentameter. The lines of Venus and Adonis rhyme ababcc, which means the first and third lines rhyme, as do the second and fourth, and the fifth and sixth.

The poem is witty and filled with sexual references. But the work is most notable for its vivid settings and its formal and elaborate speeches. Venus and Adonis represents Shakespeare’s successful attempt to write the kind of love poetry that was fashionable in court circles and enormously popular.

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The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is also partly based on the works of Ovid, as well as on writings by other authors. The poem tells of Lucrece, the virtuous wife of a Roman nobleman. Raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the tyrant Roman king Lucius Tarquinius, Lucrece demands that her husband and his friends swear to revenge her ruined honor. She then kills herself. Her supporters publicize the deed, and the people expel the Tarquins and establish the Roman Republic.

Shakespeare wrote The Rape of Lucrece in rime royal, which uses seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter that are rhymed ababbcc. The poem is more serious in tone than Venus and Adonis. Although the poem describes a violent event that has enormous consequences, it mostly consists of elaborate speeches.

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The sonnets

In the late 1500’s, it was fashionable for English gentlemen authors to write sequences of sonnets. Some sonnet sequences followed a narrative pattern that was autobiographical in varying degrees. For this reason, scholars have tried to learn about Shakespeare’s life from his sonnets. But they have reached no general agreement on autobiographical information that the poems might contain.

Scholars generally do agree, however, that Shakespeare addressed the first 126 sonnets to a young nobleman and that the next 26 concentrate on a woman. But they have not been able to identify either person. They have long debated over the nature of Shakespeare’s relationship with the young man and have come to no general conclusion. A similar uncertainty surrounds the woman known as the “dark lady.” The sexually charged sonnets concerning this figure reveal a mixture of desire and disgust. Attempts to identify the “dark lady” have been unconvincing.

In several of the first 126 sonnets, the speaker refers to another poet he considers a rival for his young friend’s affection and support. Scholars have proposed many candidates for the role of the “rival poet,” but no general agreement has emerged. Sonnets 153 and 154 are a notable departure from the preceding poems. Ultimately inspired by an epigram in Greek, both sonnets treat Cupid, the Roman god of love. This shift in subject matter has caused some scholars to question the authenticity of these last two sonnets. The volume concludes with “A Lover’s Complaint,” which tells the story of a jilted woman in 47 stanzas of rime royal.

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Composition and publication. Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets over several years, though their dates are not clear. He wrote the poems in three units of four lines each with a concluding couplet (two-line unit). Shakespeare’s sonnets rhyme abab cdcd efef gg.

Two of the sonnets originally appeared in a book of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). Thomas Thorpe published the sonnets as a collection in 1609. Thorpe dedicated the book to Mr. W. H., whom he called “the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets.” Scholars do not know who Mr. W. H. was or even if he inspired the poems or merely collected them for the publisher. The individual poems have no titles. Scholars refer to them either by their first line or by the number Thorpe assigned to them. Because the volume was not clearly authorized by Shakespeare, scholars have raised questions about the order in which the poems appear.

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Themes. In the sonnets addressed to his aristocratic friend, Shakespeare treated a variety of subjects. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (sonnet 18) praises physical beauty. “When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes” (sonnet 29) describes the power of friendship to cheer the poet. “Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws” (sonnet 19) tells of poetry’s power to confer immortality.

The sonnets’ most common themes concern the destructive effects of time, the quickness of physical decay, and the loss of beauty, vigor, and love. Although the poems celebrate life, it is always with a keen awareness of death. This awareness of death is perhaps best expressed in “Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth” (sonnet 146).

A distrust of love and human nature runs through the “dark lady” sonnets. Sonnet 138, which appears below, reflects this attitude. In addition, the poem is representative of the entire sequence in two ways. The sonnet tells of the poet’s concern over the passing of time, and it shows his strong emotion controlled by his highly intellectual wit.

When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutored youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told. Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

 

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"The Phoenix and the Turtle"

This 67-line poem appeared in 1601 in the collection called Love’s Martyr. It praises ideal love, using as symbols two birds, the phoenix and the turtledove. The poem has philosophical and symbolic qualities that have led to various biographical, political, and religious interpretations by critics.

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