shakespeare sonnet essay

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More

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Sonnet 18: Introduction

Sonnet 18 analysis: literary devices, sonnet 18: tone and themes, symbolism and imagery in the sonnet 18, literary analysis of sonnet 18: conclusion, works cited.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is one of the most known Shakespeare’s sonnets. Want to learn more about the themes, tone, and imagery in Sonnet 18 ? Read the literary analysis below!

This essay analyzes Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 . The sonnet is a captivating love story of a young man fascinated by the beauty of his mistress and affectionately comparing her to nature. The first stanza, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ opens the poem with an indication of a young man deeply in love (Shakespeare 1). He envisions her as a beautiful creature and even wonders whether one can compare her beauty to any summer season.

This love sonnet falls under the lyric genre, with the author expressing deep emotional feelings for his mistress throughout the poem. The first stanza gives an assumption to the reader that the poet is not sure of what is more beautiful, a beautiful summer day or his mistress.

However, the air is cleared in the preceding stanzas that see the poet overcome by flamboyant feelings and admits that his lover is even lovelier than the summer itself (Shakespeare 2). The poem embeds an image of an undying and eternal kind of beauty as visualized by the poet.

The poet adopts a thematic structure technique to express his lover’s beauty. A line-by-line analysis of Sonnet 18 shows that the first stanza acts as an eye-opener of the poet’s attempt to compare his lover with summer. He goes on to state why his lover is better. Stanzas 1-6 give a solid reason as to why one cannot compare his lover to summer. Though summer appears to be beautiful, it is not constant and can be very disappointing if solely relied upon. It also does not last as long as his lover’s beauty would.

The stanzas give detailed answers to his rhetorical question posed at the beginning of the poem. The poet’s praises and awe are well expressed in these stanzas by revealing all the beautiful qualities seized by his mistress. Her beauty is constant and can neither be shaken by strong winds nor can it become unpredictable like the hot sun. It doesn’t waiver in the eyes of the beholder like the clouds swallow the summer hence losing its beauty.

Stanzas 7-14 indicates everlasting beauty, which he says cannot be claimed by anything, not even a natural calamity such as death. In the conclusion of the Sonnet 18 , W. Shakespeare admits that ‘Every fair from fair sometime decline,’ he makes his mistress’s beauty an exception by claiming that her youthful nature will never fade (Shakespeare 7). Interestingly, the author takes a different twist in the ending when he no longer compares the beauty to the summer but rather to the immortality of his poems (Shakespeare 14).

The poem features an affectionate mood portrayed by the poet throughout the poem. The tone of the Sonnet 18 is that of the romantic intimacy of a young man intrigued by a woman’s beauty. The mood and the tone, therefore, play a significant role in describing the setting of the poem.

The poet is sitting in a field on a warm summer day (Shakespeare 1). Though the weather seems ideal, it is breezy, with rough winds’ shaking the buds of May’ (Shakespeare 3). That is an indication that the poet is sitting under a tree enjoying the scenery on a hot afternoon. The poet enjoys the unpredictable weather till the clouds swallow the sun, and as he states, ‘By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’ d,’ nature always seems to take its course during sunset and sunrise (Shakespeare 8).

The poet uses metaphor and personification to bring life to the Sonnet 18 . For example, he uses figurative speech to presume change, fate, and immortality. He speaks of how he will internally save his lover’s beauty from fading from the face of the earth (Shakespeare 12). ‘Summer’ as a literary device is used to mean the life of the mistress that should be safe from fate. Fate, in this case, is portrayed by the use of scorching sun and rough winds.

The imagery of the Sonnet 18 includes personified death and rough winds. The poet has even gone further to label the buds as ‘darling’ (Shakespeare 3). Death serves as a supervisor of ‘its shade,’ which is a metaphor for ‘after life’ (Shakespeare 11). All these actions are related to human beings. ‘Eternal lines to lines though growest’ (Shakespeare 12) is a praise of the poet’s poems which he says will last forever so long as ‘men can breathe or eyes can see,’ a metaphor symbolizing ‘poet lovers’ will be there to read them (Shakespeare 13).

He views beauty as an art that cannot diminish despite all the hurdles in life. However, beauty does not apply to everything but only to images that appeal more to the eyes of the beholder than nature itself. That kind of beauty is immortal and surpasses all tribulations caused by nature itself.

This essay on the Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare analyzed the poem’s tone, imagery, meaning, and main themes. In summary, the poet is fascinated by his mistress’s beauty, such that he cannot imagine that very beauty fading from his eyes. He argues that beauty is constant and, unlike a ‘summer day,’ is not affected by any changes or fate at all. He, however, seems to be praising his poem as characterized at the end of the poem, where he only compares the everlasting beauty to his text. The Sonnet eighteen’s conclusion indicates that beauty can only end only when the poem ceases to exist.

Shakespeare, William. “ Shakespeare Sonnet 18. ” Shakespeare Sonnets . 1564. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 11). William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/

"William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." IvyPanda , 11 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More'. 11 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

1. IvyPanda . "William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 Analysis: Tone, Imagery, Symbolism, and More." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/shakespeares-sonnet-18/.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

By william shakespeare, shakespeare's sonnets summary and analysis of sonnet 18 - "shall i compare thee to a summer's day".

What's he saying?

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"

What if I were to compare you to a summer day? You are lovelier and more temperate (the perfect temperature):

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May / And summer's lease hath all too short a date:"

Summer's beauty is fragile and can be shaken, and summertime fades away all too quickly:

"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines / And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;"

Sometimes the sun is far too hot, and often it is too cool, dimmed by clouds and shade;

"And every fair from fair sometime declines / By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;"

And everything that is beautiful eventually loses its beauty, whether by chance or by the uncontrollable course of nature;

"But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;"

But your eternal beauty (or youth) will not fade, nor will your beauty by lost;

"Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade / When in eternal lines to time thou growest:"

Nor will Death boast that you wander in his shadow, since you shall grow with time through these sonnets:

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this and this gives life to thee."

For as long as people can breathe and see, this sonnet will live on, and you (and your beauty) with it.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 18 is arguably the most famous of the sonnets, its opening line competitive with "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" in the long list of Shakespeare's quotable quotations. The gender of the addressee is not explicit, but this is the first sonnet after the so-called "procreation sonnets" (sonnets 1-17), i.e., it apparently marks the place where the poet has abandoned his earlier push to persuade the fair lord to have a child. The first two quatrains focus on the fair lord's beauty: the poet attempts to compare it to a summer's day, but shows that there can be no such comparison, since the fair lord's timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant season.

Here the theme of the ravages of time again predominates; we see it especially in line 7, where the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: "And every fair from fair sometime declines." But the fair lord's is of another sort, for it "shall not fade" - the poet is eternalizing the fair lord's beauty in his verse, in these "eternal lines." Note the financial imagery ("summer's lease") and the use of anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14. Also note that May (line 3) was an early summer month in Shakespeare's time, because England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.

The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments. He begins in lines 3-4, where "rough winds" are an unwelcome extreme and the shortness of summer is its disappointment. He continues in lines 5-6, where he lingers on the imperfections of the summer sun. Here again we find an extreme and a disappointment: the sun is sometimes far too hot, while at other times its "gold complexion" is dimmed by passing clouds. These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet's description of the fair lord, who is "more temperate" (not extreme) and whose "eternal summer shall not fade" (i.e., will not become a disappointment) thanks to what the poet proposes in line 12.

In line 12 we find the poet's solution - how he intends to eternalize the fair lord's beauty despite his refusal to have a child. The poet plans to capture the fair lord's beauty in his verse ("eternal lines"), which he believes will withstand the ravages of time. Thereby the fair lord's "eternal summer shall not fade," and the poet will have gotten his wish. Here we see the poet's use of "summer" as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps the beauty of youth.

But has the poet really abandoned the idea of encouraging the fair lord to have a child? Some scholars suggest that the "eternal lines" in line 12 have a double meaning: the fair lord's beauty can live on not only in the written lines of the poet's verse but also in the family lines of the fair lord's progeny. Such an interpretation would echo the sentiment of the preceding sonnet's closing couplet: "But were some child of yours alive that time / You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme." The use of "growest" also implies an increasing or changing: we can envision the fair lord's family lines growing over time, yet this image is not as readily applicable to the lines of the poet's verse - unless it refers only to his intention to continue writing about the fair lord's beauty, his verse thereby "growing." On the other hand, line 14 seems to counter this interpretation, the singular "this" (as opposed to "these") having as its most likely antecedent the poet's verse, and nothing more.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Shakespeare’s Sonnets is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Summary of sonnet 18

Here the theme of the ravages of time again predominates; we see it especially in line 7, where the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: "And every fair from fair sometime declines." But the fair lord's is of another sort, for it...

Part A In Sonnet 12 (“When I do count the clock that tells the time”), what do the images of passing time make the speaker wonder about the person he addresses? a. Will that person’s beauty fade? b. Will that person’s fame endure? c. d. Will that person a

a. Will that person’s beauty fade?

What is the message of Sonnet 18?

Shakespeare's main message is that which will fade in life (beauty) can be immortalized in verse.... his poetry will live forever.

Study Guide for Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Shakespeare's Sonnets
• Shakespeare's Sonnets Summary
• Character List

Essays for Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of various sonnets by William Shakespeare.

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• Human Discrepancy: Mortality and Money in Sonnet 146

Lesson Plan for Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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• Study Objectives
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• Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets
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• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Shakespeare's Sonnets Bibliography

E-Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets e-text contains the full text of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

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Shakespeare's sonnets : critical essays

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In this first of many sonnets about the briefness of human life, the poet reminds the young man that time and death will destroy even the fairest of living things. Only if they reproduce themselves will their beauty survive. The young man’s refusal to beget a child is therefore self-destructive and wasteful.

The poet challenges the young man to imagine two different futures, one in which he dies childless, the other in which he leaves behind a son. In the first, the young man will waste the uninvested treasure of his youthful beauty. In the other, though still himself subject to the ravages of time, his child’s beauty will witness the father’s wise investment of this treasure.

The poet urges the young man to reflect on his own image in a mirror. Just as the young man’s mother sees her own youthful self reflected in the face of her son, so someday the young man should be able to look at his son’s face and see reflected his own youth. If the young man decides to die childless, all these faces and images die with him.

The poet returns to the idea of beauty as treasure that should be invested for profit. Here, the young man’s refusal to beget a child is likened to his spending inherited wealth on himself rather than investing it or sharing it generously.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet compares the young man to summer and its flowers, doomed to be destroyed by winter. Even though summer inevitably dies, he argues, its flowers can be distilled into perfume. The beauty of the flowers and thereby the essence of summer are thus preserved.

Continuing the argument from s. 5, the poet urges the young man to produce a child, and thus distill his own summerlike essence. The poet then returns to the beauty-as-treasure metaphor and proposes that the lending of treasure for profit—i.e., usury—is not forbidden by law when the borrower is happy with the bargain. If the young man lends his beauty and gets in return enormous wealth in the form of children, Death will be helpless to destroy him, since he will continue to live in his offspring.

This sonnet traces the path of the sun across the sky, noting that mortals gaze in admiration at the rising and the noonday sun. When the sun begins to set, says the poet, it is no longer an attraction. Such is the path that the young man’s life will follow—a blaze of glory followed by descent into obscurity—unless he begets a son.

The poet observes the young man listening to music without pleasure, and suggests that the young man hears in the harmony produced by the instrument’s individual but conjoined strings an accusation about his refusing to play his part in the concord of “sire and child and happy mother.”

The poet argues that if the young man refuses to marry for fear of someday leaving behind a grieving widow, he is ignoring the worldwide grief that will be caused if he dies single, leaving behind no heir to his beauty.

This sonnet, expanding the couplet that closes s. 9, accuses the young man of a murderous hatred against himself and his family line and urges him to so transform himself that his inner being corresponds to his outer graciousness and kindness.

The poet once again urges the young man to choose a future in which his offspring carry his vitality forward instead of one in which his natural gifts will be coldly buried. The very exceptionality of the young man’s beauty obliges him to cherish and wisely perpetuate that gift.

As he observes the motion of the clock and the movement of all living things toward death and decay, the poet faces the fact that the young man’s beauty will be destroyed by Time. Nothing besides offspring, he argues, can defy Time’s scythe.

The poet argues that the young man, in refusing to prepare for old age and death by producing a child, is like a spendthrift who fails to care for his family mansion, allowing it to be destroyed by the wind and the cold of winter.

As astrologers predict the future from the stars, so the poet reads the future in the “constant stars” of the young man’s eyes, where he sees that if the young man breeds a son, truth and beauty will survive; if not, they die when the young man dies.

In the first of two linked sonnets, the poet once again examines the evidence that beauty and splendor exist only for a moment before they are destroyed by Time. Here the poet suggests—through wordplay on  engraft —that the young man can be kept alive not only through procreation but also in the poet’s verse.

Continuing the thought of s. 15, the poet argues that procreation is a “mightier way” than poetry for the young man to stay alive, since the poet’s pen cannot present him as a living being.

As further argument against mere poetic immortality, the poet insists that if his verse displays the young man’s qualities in their true splendor, later ages will assume that the poems are lies. However, if the young man leaves behind a child, he will remain doubly alive—in verse and in his offspring.

In a radical departure from the previous sonnets, the young man’s beauty, here more perfect even than a day in summer, is not threatened by Time or Death, since he will live in perfection forever in the poet’s verses.

The “war with Time” announced in s. 15 is here engaged in earnest as the poet, allowing Time its usual predations, forbids it to attack the young man. Should this command fail to be effective, however, the poet claims that the young man will in any case remain always young in the poet’s verse.

The poet fantasizes that the young man’s beauty is the result of Nature’s changing her mind: she began to create a beautiful woman, fell in love with her own creation, and turned it into a man. The poet, thus deprived of a female sexual partner, concedes that it is women who will receive pleasure and progeny from the young man, but the poet will nevertheless have the young man’s love.

The poet contrasts himself with poets who compare those they love to such rarities as the sun, the stars, or April flowers. His poetry will, he writes, show his beloved as a beautiful mortal instead of using the exaggerated terms of an advertisement.

This sonnet plays with the poetic idea of love as an exchange of hearts. The poet urges the young man to take care of himself, since his breast carries the poet’s heart; and the poet promises the same care of the young man’s heart, which, the poet reminds him, has been given to the poet “not to give back again.”

The poet blames his inability to speak his love on his lack of self-confidence and his too-powerful emotions, and he begs his beloved to find that love expressed in his writings.

This sonnet elaborates the metaphor of carrying the beloved’s picture in one’s heart. The poet claims that his eyes have painted on his heart a picture of the beloved. The poet’s body is both the picture’s frame and the shop where it is displayed. His only regret is that eyes paint only what they see, and they cannot see into his beloved’s heart.

The poet contrasts himself with those who seem more fortunate than he. Their titles and honors, he says, though great, are subject to whim and accident, while his greatest blessing, his love, will not change.

The poet, assuming the role of a vassal owing feudal allegiance, offers his poems as a token of duty, apologizing for their lack of literary worth. He begs his liege lord to protect this expression of his duty until fortune allows him to boast openly of his love.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet complains that the night, which should be a time of rest, is instead a time of continuing toil as, in his imagination, he struggles to reach his beloved.

Continuing the thought of s. 27, the poet claims that day and night conspire to torment him. Though he has flattered both day and night by comparing them to beautiful qualities of his beloved, day continues to exhaust him and night to distress him.

The poet, dejected by his low status, remembers his friend’s love, and is thereby lifted into joy.

The poet pictures his moments of serious reflection as a court session in which his memories are summoned to appear. As they come forward, he grieves for all that he has lost, but he then thinks of his beloved friend and the grief changes to joy.

The poet sees the many friends now lost to him as contained in his beloved. Thus, the love he once gave to his lost friends is now given wholly to the beloved.

The poet imagines his poems being read and judged by his beloved after the poet’s death, and he asks that the poems, though not as excellent as those written by later writers, be kept and enjoyed because of the love expressed in them.

The poet describes the sun first in its glory and then after its being covered with dark clouds; this change resembles his relationship with the beloved, who is now “masked” from him. But if even the sun can be darkened, he writes, it is no wonder that earthly beings sometimes fail to remain bright and unstained. (This is the first of a series of three poems in which the beloved is pictured as having hurt the poet through some unspecified misdeed.)

In this sonnet the sun is again overtaken by clouds, but now the sun/beloved is accused of having betrayed the poet by promising what is not delivered. The poet writes that while the beloved’s repentance and shame do not rectify the damage done, the beloved’s tears are so precious that they serve as atonement.

The poet excuses the beloved by citing examples of other naturally beautiful objects associated with things hurtful or ugly. He then accuses himself of being corrupted through excusing his beloved’s faults.

The poet accepts the fact that for the sake of the beloved’s honorable name, their lives must be separate and their love unacknowledged.

The poet feels crippled by misfortune but takes delight in the blessings heaped by nature and fortune on the beloved.

The poet attributes all that is praiseworthy in his poetry to the beloved, who is his theme and inspiration.

As in s. 36, the poet finds reasons to excuse the fact that he and the beloved are parted. First, it is easier to praise the beloved if they are not a “single one”; and, second, absence from the beloved gives the poet leisure to contemplate their love.

This first of three linked sonnets accuses the young man of having stolen the poet’s “love.” The poet struggles to justify and forgive the young man’s betrayal, but can go no farther than the concluding “we must not be foes.” (While the word  love  is elaborately ambiguous in this sonnet, the following two sonnets make it clear that the theft is of the poet’s mistress.)

The poet again tries to forgive the young man, now on the grounds that the young man could hardly have been expected to refuse the woman’s seduction. The attempt to forgive fails because the young man has caused a twofold betrayal: his beauty having first seduced the woman, both he and she have then been faithless to the poet.

The poet attempts to excuse the two lovers. He first argues that they love each other only because of him; he then argues that since he and the young man are one, in loving the young man, the woman actually loves the poet. The poet acknowledges, though, that all of this is mere “flattery” or self-delusion.

The poet, separated from the beloved, reflects on the paradox that because he dreams of the beloved, he sees better with his eyes closed in sleep than he does with them open in daylight. His desire, though, is to see not the dream image but the actual person.

In this sonnet, which links with s. 45 to form, in effect, a two-part poem, the poet wishes that he were thought rather than flesh so that he could be with the beloved. The poet, being mortal, is instead made up of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water. The dullest of these elements, earth and water, are dominant in him and force him to remain fixed in place, weeping “heavy tears.”

This sonnet, the companion to s. 44, imagines the poet’s thoughts and desires as the “other two” elements—air and fire—that make up “life’s composition.” When his thoughts and desires are with the beloved, the poet, reduced to earth and water, sinks into melancholy; when his thoughts and desires return, assuring the poet of the beloved’s “fair health,” the poet is briefly joyful, until he sends them back to the beloved and again is “sad.”

In this first of another pair of sonnets (perhaps a witty thank-you for the gift of a miniature portrait), the poet’s eyes and his heart are in a bitter dispute about which has the legal right to the beloved’s picture. The case is brought before a jury made up of the poet’s thoughts. This jury determines that the eyes have the right to the picture, since it is the beloved’s outer image; the heart, though, has the right to the beloved’s love.

After the verdict is rendered (in s. 46), the poet’s eyes and heart become allies, with the eyes sometimes inviting the heart to enjoy the picture, and the heart sometimes inviting the eyes to share in its “thoughts of love.” The beloved, though absent, is thus doubly present to the poet through the picture and through the poet’s thoughts.

The poet contrasts the relative ease of locking away valuable material possessions with the impossibility of safeguarding his relationship with the beloved. The beloved can be enclosed only in the poet’s heart, which cannot block the beloved’s egress nor protect against those who would steal the beloved away.

The poet tries to prepare himself for a future in which the beloved rejects him. When that day comes, he writes, he will shield himself within the knowledge of his own worth, acknowledging that he can cite no reason in support of their love.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet’s unhappiness in traveling away from the beloved seems to him reproduced in the plodding steps and the groans of the horse that carries him.

The slow-moving horse (of s. 50) will have no excuse for his plodding gait on the return journey, for which even the fastest horse, the poet realizes, will be too slow. Returning to the beloved, desire and love will outrun any horse.

The poet likens himself to a rich man who visits his treasures rarely so that they remain for him a source of pleasure. The poet’s infrequent meetings with the beloved, he argues, are, like rare feasts or widely spaced jewels, the more precious for their rarity.

Using language from Neoplatonism, the poet praises the beloved both as the essence of beauty (its very Idea, which is only imperfectly reflected in lesser beauties) and as the epitome of constancy.

Here the beloved’s truth is compared to the fragrance in the rose. As that fragrance is distilled into perfume, so the beloved’s truth distills in verse.

Continuing the idea of the beloved’s distillation into poetry (in the couplet of s. 54), the poet now claims that his verse will be a “living record” in which the beloved will “shine . . . bright” until Doomsday.

The poet addresses the spirit of love and then the beloved, urging that love be reinvigorated and that the present separation of the lovers serve to renew their love’s intensity.

In this and the following sonnet, the poet presents his relationship with the beloved as that of servant and master. As the beloved’s servant, the poet describes himself (with barely suppressed bitterness) as having no life or wishes of his own as he waits like a “sad slave” for the commands of his “sovereign.”

This sonnet repeats the ideas and some of the language of s. 57, though the pain of waiting upon (and waiting for) the beloved and asking nothing in return seems even more intense in the present poem.

The poet here plays with the idea of history as cyclical and with the proverb “There is nothing new under the sun.” If he could go back in time, he writes, he could see how the beloved’s beauty was praised in the distant past and thus judge whether the world had progressed, regressed, or stayed the same.

The poet meditates on life’s inevitable course through maturity to death. Everything, he says, is a victim of Time’s scythe. Only his poetry will stand against Time, keeping alive his praise of the beloved.

The poet first wonders if the beloved is deliberately keeping him awake by sending dream images to spy on him, but then admits it is his own devotion and jealousy that will not let him sleep.

The poet accuses himself of supreme vanity in that he thinks so highly of himself. He then admits that the “self” he holds in such esteem is not his physical self but his “other self,” the beloved.

By preserving the youthful beauty of the beloved in poetry, the poet makes preparation for the day that the beloved will himself be old.

Signs of the destructive power of time and decay—such as fallen towers and eroded beaches—force the poet to admit that the beloved will also be lost to him and to mourn this anticipated loss.

In the face of the terrible power of Time, how, the poet asks, can beauty survive? And how can the beloved, most beautiful of all, be protected from Time’s injury? The only protection, he decides, lies in the lines of his poetry.

The poet lists examples of the societal wrongs that have made him so weary of life that he would wish to die, except that he would thereby desert the beloved.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet asks why the beautiful young man should live in a society so corrupt, since his very presence gives it legitimacy. He concludes that Nature is keeping the young man alive as a reminder of the world as it used to be.

Continuing the argument of s. 67, the poet sets the natural beauty of the young man against the “false art” of those whose beauty depends on cosmetics and wigs.

The poet tells the young man that while the world praises his outward beauty, those who look into his inner being (as reflected in his deeds) speak of him in quite different terms. They ground their accusations in his having become too “common.”

The poet tells the young man that the attacks on his reputation do not mean that he is flawed, since beauty always provokes such attacks. (This sonnet may contradict s. 69, or may simply elaborate on it.)

In this first of a series of four sonnets in which the poet addresses his own death and its effect on the beloved, he here urges the beloved to forget him once he is gone.

Continuing from s. 71, this sonnet explains that the beloved can defend loving the poet only by speaking falsely, by giving the poet more credit than he deserves. The beloved is urged instead to forget the poet once he is dead.

The poet describes himself as nearing the end of his life. He imagines the beloved’s love for him growing stronger in the face of that death.

In this sonnet, which continues from s. 73, the poet consoles the beloved by telling him that only the poet’s body will die; the spirit of the poet will continue to live in the poetry, which is the beloved’s.

The poet compares himself to a miser with his treasure. He finds the beloved so essential to his life that he lives in a constant tension between glorying in that treasure and fearing its loss.

The poet poses the question of why his poetry never changes but keeps repeating the same language and technique. The answer, he says, is that his theme never changes; he always writes of the beloved and of love.

This sonnet seems to have been written to accompany the gift of a blank notebook. The poet encourages the beloved to write down the thoughts that arise from observing a mirror and a sundial and the lessons they teach about the brevity of life.

In this first of a series of three sonnets in which the poet expresses his concern that others are writing verses praising the beloved, the other poets are presented as learned and skillful and thus in no need of the beloved, in contrast to the poet speaking here.

In this sonnet, which follows directly from s. 78, the poet laments the fact that another poet has taken his place. He urges the beloved to recognize that all of the beauty, grace, and virtue found in the rival’s praise is taken from the beloved, so that the rival deserves no thanks.

The poet admits his inferiority to the one who is now writing about the beloved, portraying the two poets as ships sailing on the ocean of the beloved’s worth—the rival poet as large and splendid and himself as a small boat that risks being wrecked by love.

The poet, imagining a future in which both he and the beloved are dead, sees himself as being completely forgotten while the beloved will be forever remembered because of the poet’s verse.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet again addresses the fact that other poets write in praise of the beloved. The beloved is free to read them, but their poems do not represent the beloved truly.

This sonnet continues from s. 82, but the poet has learned to his dismay that his plain speaking (and/or his silence) has offended the beloved. He argues that no words can match the beloved’s beauty.

The poet reiterates his claim that poems praising the beloved should reflect the beloved’s perfections rather than exaggerate them. He accuses the beloved of caring too much for praise.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet says that his silence in the face of others’ extravagant praise of the beloved is only outward muteness. His thoughts are filled with love.

This final “rival poet” sonnet continues from s. 85 but echoes the imagery of s. 80. The poet explains that his silence is not from fear of his rival, but results from having nothing to write about, now that the rival’s verse has appropriated the beloved’s favor.

The poet writes as if his relationship with the beloved has ended—and as if that relationship had been a wonderful dream from which he has now waked.

In this first of three linked sonnets in which the poet has been (or imagines himself someday to be) repudiated by the beloved, the poet offers to sacrifice himself and his reputation in order to make the now-estranged beloved look better.

This sonnet is a detailed extension of the closing line of s. 88. The poet here lists the ways he will make himself look bad in order to make the beloved look good.

Continuing from the final line of s. 89, this sonnet begs the beloved to deliver quickly any terrible blow that awaits the poet. Then the other blows being dealt by the world will seem as nothing.

In this first of three linked sonnets, the poet sets the love of the beloved above every other treasure, but then acknowledges that that love can be withdrawn.

Continuing the argument from s. 91, the poet, imagining the loss of the beloved, realizes gladly that since even the smallest perceived diminishment of that love would cause him instantly to die, he need not fear living with the pain of loss. But, he asks, what if the beloved is false but gives no sign of defection?

The poet explores the implications of the final line of s. 92. It would be easy for the beloved to be secretly false, he realizes, because the beloved is so unfailingly beautiful and (apparently) loving.

This sonnet describes a category of especially blessed and powerful people who appear to exert complete control over their lives and themselves. These persons are then implicitly compared to flowers and contrasted with weeds, the poem concluding with a warning to such persons in the form of a proverb about lilies.

In this first of a pair of related poems, the poet accuses the beloved of using beauty to hide a corrupt moral center.

As in the companion s. 95, the beloved is accused of enjoying the love of many despite his faults, which youth and beauty convert to graces.

In this first of three sonnets about a period of separation from the beloved, the poet remembers the time as bleak winter, though the actual season was warm and filled with nature’s abundance.

The poet here remembers an April separation, in which springtime beauty seemed to him only a pale reflection of the absent beloved.

This third poem about the beloved’s absence is closely linked to s. 98. In the present sonnet, the poet accuses spring flowers and herbs of stealing color and fragrance from the beloved. The sonnet is unusual in that the first “quatrain” has five lines; the poem therefore has 15 lines, the only such sonnet in the sequence.

In this first of a group of four sonnets about a period of time in which the poet has failed to write about the beloved, the poet summons his poetic genius to return and compose verse that will immortalize the beloved.

Continuing from s. 100, this poem has the muse tell the poet that the beloved needs no praise. The poet responds that the poems are for the edification of future ages.

The poet defends his silence, arguing that it is a sign not of lessened love but of his desire, in a world where pleasures have grown common, to avoid wearying the beloved with poems of praise.

In this fourth poem of apology for his silence, the poet argues that the beloved’s own face is so superior to any words of praise that silence is the better way.

The poet ponders the beloved’s seemingly unchanging beauty, realizing that it is doubtless altering even as he watches. He warns that the epitome of beauty will have died before future ages are born.

Arguing that his poetry is not idolatrous in the sense of “polytheistic,” the poet contends that he celebrates only a single person, the beloved, as forever “fair, kind, and true.” Yet by locating this trinity of features in a single being, the poet flirts with idolatry in the sense of worshipping his beloved.

The poet, in reading descriptions of beautiful knights and ladies in old poetry, realizes that the poets were trying to describe the beauty of the beloved, but, having never seen him, could only approximate it.

This sonnet celebrates an external event that had threatened to be disastrous but that has turned out to be wonderful. The poet’s love, in this new time, is also refreshed.

The poet explains that his repeated words of love and praise are like daily prayer; though old, they are always new. True love is also always new, though the lover and the beloved may age.

The poet defends his infidelities, arguing that his return washes away the blemish of his having left.

The poet confesses to having been unfaithful to the beloved, but claims that his straying has rejuvenated him and made the beloved seem even more godlike.

In this first of two linked poems, the poet blames Fortune for putting him in a profession that led to his bad behavior, and he begs the beloved to punish him and to pity him.

The pity asked for in s. 111 has here been received, and the poet therefore has no interest in others’ opinions of his worth or behavior.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet confesses that everything he sees is transformed into an image of the beloved.

In a continuation of s. 113, the poet debates whether the lovely images of the beloved are true or are the mind’s delusions, and he decides on the latter.

The poet acknowledges that the very fact that his love has grown makes his earlier poems about the fullness and constancy of his love into lies.

The poet here meditates on what he sees as the truest and strongest kind of love, that between minds. He defines such a union as unalterable and eternal.

In this first of a group of four sonnets of self-accusation and of attempts at explanation, the poet lists the charges that can be made against him, and then says he was merely testing the beloved’s love.

In this second sonnet of self-accusation, the poet uses analogies of eating and of purging to excuse his infidelities.

Filled with self-disgust at having subjected himself to so many evils in the course of his infidelity, the poet nevertheless finds an excuse in discovering that his now reconstructed love is stronger than it was before.

In this fourth sonnet about his unkindness to the beloved, the poet comforts himself with the memory of the time the beloved was unkind to him.

The poet responds to slurs about his behavior by claiming that he is no worse (and is perhaps better) than his attackers.

This sonnet addresses the hard question of why the poet has given away the beloved’s gift of a writing tablet. After several stumbling tries, the poet ends by claiming that for him to have kept the tables would have implied that he needed help in remembering the unforgettable beloved.

The poet repeats an idea from s. 59—that there is nothing new under the sun—and accuses Time of tricking us into perceiving things as new only because we live for such a short time. He reasserts his vow to remain constant despite Time’s power.

In this difficult and much-discussed sonnet, the poet declares the permanence and wisdom of his love.

The poet, in apparent response to accusation, claims that his love (and, perhaps, his poetry of praise) is not basely motivated by desire for outward honor.

The poet acknowledges that the beloved young man grows lovelier with time, as if Nature has chosen him as her darling, but warns him that her protection cannot last forever—that eventually aging and death will come.

The poet defends his love of a mistress who does not meet the conventional standard of beauty by claiming that her dark eyes and hair (and, perhaps, dark skin) are the new standard. The old version of beauty—blond hair and light skin—are so readily counterfeited that beauty in that form is no longer trusted.

This sonnet uses the conventional poetic idea of the poet envying an object being touched by the beloved. Here, the object is the keyboard of an instrument.

This sonnet describes what Booth calls “the life cycle of lust”—a moment of bliss preceded by madness and followed by despair.

This sonnet plays with poetic conventions in which, for example, the mistress’s eyes are compared with the sun, her lips with coral, and her cheeks with roses. His mistress, says the poet, is nothing like this conventional image, but is as lovely as any woman.

The poet disagrees with those who say that his mistress is not beautiful enough to make a lover miserable. He groans for her as for any beauty. Only her behavior, he says, is ugly.

The poet begs the mistress to model her heart after her eyes, which, because they are black as if dressed in mourning, show their pity for his pain as a lover.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the pain felt by the poet as lover of the mistress is multiplied by the fact that the beloved friend is also enslaved by her.

The poet continues to rationalize the young man’s betrayal, here using language of debt and forfeit.

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet apparently begs his (promiscuous) mistress to allow him back into her bed.

In this second sonnet built around wordplay on the word  will,  the poet continues to plead for a place among the mistress’s lovers.

The poet asks why both his eyes and his heart have fastened on a woman neither beautiful nor chaste.

The poet describes a relationship built on mutual deception that deceives neither party: the mistress claims constancy and the poet claims youth.

The poet, after refusing to make excuses for the mistress’s wrongs, begs her not to flirt with others in his presence. He then excuses that wrong, only to ask her to direct her eyes against him as if they were mortal weapons.

The poet warns the mistress that she would be wiser to pretend to love him and thus avoid driving him into a despair that would no longer hold its tongue.

The poet describes his heart as going against his senses and his mind in its determination to love.

The poet accuses the woman of scorning his love not out of virtue but because she is busy making adulterous love elsewhere.

The poet expands on s. 142.9–10 (where he pursues a mistress who pursues others) by presenting a picture of a woman who chases a barnyard fowl while her infant chases after her.

The poet’s three-way relationship with the mistress and the young man is here presented as an allegory of a person tempted by a good and a bad angel.

In this sonnet, perhaps written when Shakespeare was very young, the poet plays with the difference between the words “I hate” and “I hate not you.” (Note that the lines of the sonnet are in tetrameter instead of pentameter.)

The poet here meditates on the soul and its relation to the body, in life and in death.

The poet describes his love for the lady as a desperate sickness.

The poet once again (as in ss. 113, 114, 137, and 141) questions his own eyesight. Here, he describes his eyes’ image of his mistress as in conflict with his judgment and with the views of the world in general.

The poet argues that he has proved his love for the lady by turning against himself when she turns against him.

The sonnet begins with the poet’s questioning why he should love what he knows he should hate; it ends with his claim that this love of her unworthiness should cause the lady to love him.

The poet displays the sexually obsessive nature of his love.

The poet turns his accusations against the woman’s inconstancy and oath-breaking against himself, accusing himself of deliberate blindness and perjury.

This sonnet uses an ancient parable to demonstrate that love’s fire is unquenchable. It goes on to argue that only the mistress’s eyes can cure the poet.

This sonnet, like s. 153, retells the parable of Cupid’s torch turning a fountain into a hot bath, this time to argue that the poet’s disease of love is incurable.

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Shakespeare's Sonnets

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Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays is the essential Sonnets anthology for our time. This important collection focuses exclusively on contemporary criticism of the Sonnets, reprinting three highly influential essays from the past decade and including sixteen original analyses by leading scholars in the field. The contributors' diverse approaches range from the new historicism to the new bibliography, from formalism to feminism, from reception theory to cultural materialism, and from biographical criticism to queer theory. In addition, James Schiffer's introduction offers a comprehensive survey of 400 years of criticism of these fascinating, enigmatic poems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part i | 60  pages, introduction, chapter | 58  pages, reading new life into shakespeare's sonnets, part ii | 86  pages, recent essays on shakespeare's sonnets, chapter | 14  pages, editing as cultural formation, chapter | 24  pages, the scandal of shakespeare's sonnets, chapter | 21  pages, “incertainties now crown themselves assur'd”, the silent speech of shakespeare's sonnets, part | 314  pages, part iii new essays on shakespeare's sonnets, shakespeare's petrarchism, chapter | 13  pages, “i am that i am”, chapter | 19  pages, “a dateless lively heat”, politics, heresy, and martyrdom in shakespeare's sonnet 124 and titus andronicus, chapter | 20  pages, the name of the rose, what's the use, sonnets 71–74, the matter of inwardness, “the dyer's hand”, playing “the mother's part”, be dark but not too dark, the sonnets on trial, i, you, he, she, and we, chapter | 22  pages, sex without issue, “that which thou hast done“.

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Explore the Greatest Poetry

All 154 of william shakespeare’s sonnets.

William Shakespeare’s Sonnets offers love, the passage of time, and beauty, showing the complexities of human emotions.

Although William Shakespeare was most known for the plays he wrote, he also wrote a lot of sonnets too ( what is a sonnet? ): 154 in fact. With this, here is the complete list of every sonnet that William Shakespeare ever wrote, linking to the summary and analysis of each for yourself to explore.

What is a Shakespearean Sonnet?

A Shakespearean sonnet is a poem that is fourteen lines long , as this traditional with sonnets, that follows a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG , and uses iambic pentameter .

This means each sonnet is made up of three quatrains (set of ABABs), with a final rhyming couplet . Typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the lines two lines tend to summarize the sonnet very well, leaving a twist, an emotion, or an overview of the topic of the sonnet.

What are Shakespeare’s Sonnets Primarily About? 

Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets touch on a range of themes. But, the sonnets are primarily about two relationships and the trials and tribulations the speaker endures as he navigates them.

Readers will often find the speaker reflecting upon:

• His age and the passage of time
• Lust and passion
• Betrayal and infidelity

The Fair Youth and the Dark Lady

The sonnets are loosely divided into two sections: the Fair Youth sonnets and the Dark Lady sonnets.

The first section of sonnets, 1-126, is concerned with the speaker’s relationship with a young man. He is socially superior to the speaker, younger, more beautiful, and according to the speaker, ignoring his duty to father children. Throughout these sonnets, the speaker explores the young man’s beauty, how they treat one another, what the young man should do in life, and especially how his beauty is going to fade if he doesn’t father children.

The second set of sonnets, 127-152, is about a relationship with a mysterious woman known as the Dark Lady. She’s cruel, beautiful, and responsible for a great deal of the speaker’s distress. She has a dark complexion and is very sexual.

The final two sonnets, 153 and 154, are different from those that came before them. They stand alone and are usually considered anacreontics. They deal with wine, love, and song and are often thought to be concerned with Edmund Spenser . There are references to venereal disease, sex, and the story of Cupid.

All 154 of William Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Explore each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, with links to their corresponding analyses. Click on any sonnet to reveal the full poem text, with a short summary of the sonnet.

Introduces many of the themes which echo through the rest of the collection.

Addresses the need to have children as a way of guaranteeing one’s legacy and beauty. 

Main themes of procreation and beauty. The  tone  of the poem portrays the lyrical   voice ’s fixation and fervor over the young man, the ‘Fair Youth.’

Compares the choice to have children to a good investment in immortality. 

Urges a young man to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty and refers to the ‘Fair Youth.’

Extends and continues with the themes and the imagery of ‘ Sonnet 5 .’ Winter imagery and summer imagery are opposed in order to symbolize old age and young age.

Directed at the Fair Youth who has yet to find a wife and have a child. 

Speaks on the Fair Youth’s lack of commitment and selfish hoarding of his beauty.

The poem is one of the harsher, more direct ones in the series. In it, the speaker negatively accuses the Fair Youth for not wanting to have a child.

Addresses the Fair Youth and tells him that it’s in his best interest to have children.

Uses a series of images and metaphors to depict the ravages of time that the Fair Youth will have to face.

A poem about life, death, and how one can extend their life through their children. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and, like other sonnets, encourages the young man to have children. 

A love poem directed at the Fair Youth about whom the speaker is very concerned. 

The speaker is addressing the power, or lack thereof, of poetry. It might help to preserve something of the Fair Youth’s beauty and goodness, but not like a child would.

The speaker makes a plea for the Fair Youth to realize that the speaker’s writing can only go so far. He might do his best and capture the youth accurately, but no one in the future is going to believe him.

Attempts to justify the speaker’s beloved’s beauty by comparing it to a summer’s day and comes to the conclusion that his beloved is better after listing some of the summer’s negative qualities

Contains a speaker’s pleas to Time that she spare her lover from old age. 

Acknowledges the Fair Youth’s body and beauty and presents questions about the speaker’s sexuality.

Addresses the speaker’s feelings for the Fair Youth and compares his own writing to another poet’s.

One in a series of poems that connects love, beauty, and aging as they exist between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

Addresses the speaker’s inability to communicate sufficiently the love he bears for the Fair Youth. 

A love poem that uses an  extended metaphor  to depict the connection between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

A clever love poem that compares the speaker’s permanent love to fleeting moments of fame. 

Addresses the speaker’s inability to put his love and devotion into clear and worthy words. 

Speaks on the exhaustion and hope associated with the jewel-like image of a young man. 

Addresses a speaker’s inability to sleep and his attempts to remedy this problem through  personification  and  hyperbole . 

One of several poems dedicated to the unknown Fair Youth, in which he despairs over his state, his fate, and his difference from other luckier men.

Describes the speaker’s most depressed state and what it is that finally lifts him out of it and relieves his sorrows. 

Imbues the Fair Youth with all the love that the speaker should’ve given to and received from other lovers.

Directed towards the Fair Youth and discusses the impact that the speaker’s poems will have in the future. 

A complex image of love and betrayal crafted through a  metaphor  comparing the youth to the sun. 

Uses the metaphor of the sun covered by clouds to depict the Fair Youth’s sin. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and explains how the two of them are no longer going to be able to see one another.

Compares the speaker’s position to that of the young, beautiful man about whom he cares so deeply. 

A heartfelt poem that focuses on the importance of a specific muse and his influence over the speaker’s writing. 

Addresses the speaker’s inability to adequately praise and celebrate the Fair Youth when the two are together. 

Directed to the Fair Youth and discusses his recent choice to sleep with the speaker’s mistress.

Addressed to the Fair Youth about whom Shakespeare’s speaker cares so deeply. 

The final poem in the series of “betrayal sonnets” addresses the youth’s misdeed, sleeping with the speaker’s mistress.

Speaks about sleeping, darkness, light, and the Fair Youth’s power to brighten the speaker’s dreams.

A creative poem that depicts the speaker’s dream of being able to travel through space as a thought. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and discusses the speaker’s connection to him via two elements, air and fire. 

Addressed to the Fair Youth and uses the “eyes” and “heart” to speak on the ways that he is loved. 

Finished thoughts that the speaker began in ‘ Sonnet 46 ’ in regards to an agreement of the eyes and heart.

Addresses the Fair Youth’s position within the speaker’s heart and the insecurity of that position. 

The speaker states that he is undeserving of the youth’s love, therefore preparing himself  for the future . 

Presents the reader with a  depressing image of the speaker as he separates himself from the Fair Youth. 

The second part of a depressing and longing-filled narrative about travel that the speaker began in ‘ Sonnet 50 ’. 

Filled with  figurative language  that compares the speaker’s relationship with the Fair Youth to a closed treasure chest.

A  devotional poem  that expresses the speaker’s admiration for the beauty of the Fair Youth. 

A clever and memorable poem that uses two similar yet integrally different flowers to speak on the Fair Youth. 

The poem has a musical quality that is heightened further by  alliteration  here and there.

Addresses a period of separation and a possible decline in affection between the speaker and the Fair Youth. 

A typical love poem – the speaker extols the virtues of his lover, and he vows to love and adore his lover, regardless of whether or not it is returned. 

Directed to the Fair Youth and describes the speaker’s slave-like devotion to the young man. 

Takes a look at the notion of originality and how things have changed, or have not, in the last 500 years. 

Discusses the power of time to take life from even the most beautiful and the power of writing to fight back. 

A devotional sonnet that’s dedicated to the relationship that exists between the speaker and the Fair Youth. 

One in a series of sonnets that is focused on the love that Shakespeare, or a speaker he is channeling, holds for a young man.

A dark and depressing poem that speaks on the power of time to destroy the speaker’s love.

One of several poems that discuss time, aging, and what writing can and cannot do to fight against these forces.

A dark and depressing poem that expresses the speaker’s irritation and exhaustion with the world. 

An interesting and multilayered poem that discusses the role that the Fair Youth plays in a world where all other beauty is fake. 

An interesting poem that discusses the ways that slanderous people treat the Fair Youth’s beauty. 

Directed at the Fair Youth and describes what the youth should do and feel after the speaker has died. 

A gloomy poem that informs the Fair Youth that he should forget the speaker entirely once he’s dead. 

Part of the set of poems that are addressed to an unnamed young man named the Fair Youth.

A going sonnet that depicts the speaker’s uncontrollable obsession with the Fair Youth. 

An upbeat and clever sonnet that discusses the speaker’s love for the youth and his own writing.

Engages in some of the most common themes in Shakespeare’s 154 sonnet series, including old age, time, and beauty.

Contains the words of an infatuated speaker who attributes his verse to the Fair Youth‘s influence.

Discusses the complicated relationship between the speaker, the youth, and other poets who might write about him.

One of several poems that alludes to the influence of the arrival poet on the relationship between the speaker and the Fair Youth.

One of several poems that speaks on the power of writing to create an immortal tomb for the Fair Youth.

Discuss the Fair Youth‘s relationship with all the writers dedicated to his beauty. 

Discusses the speaker’s tactics when it comes to depicting the Fair Youth’s beauty in his verse. 

One of several poems that uses writing as a major theme talk about the Fair Youth’s beauty. 

One of several poems that discusses the impacts that other writers have on the speaker and the Fair Youth’s relationship.

One of a number of poems that discuss the influence of a “rival poet” on the Fair Youth and the speaker’s relationship.

A depressing poem in which the speaker discusses his inadequacies and the loss of the youth’s love. 

One of several poems that discusses the degrees of worth that the speaker feels extends between himself and the youth. 

The second half of ‘ Sonnet 88 ’ that discusses the speaker’s willingness to scorn himself. 

Speaks about the disintegrating relationship between the Fair Youth and the speaker, as in previous sonnets.

A fairly straightforward poem that expresses the speaker’s pride in his relationship with the fair youth and his fear of losing him.

Discusses the fact that the speaker is going to live and die happily because of his relationship with the Fair Youth.

Describes how the Fair Youth’s countenance is crafted in such a way that it shows nothing but love.

An interesting and multilayered sonnet that suggests that the Fair Youth is on the verge of losing his admirable nature.

Directed at the Fair Youth in an attempt to help him curb his misdeeds and stop taking advantage of his beauty.

Addresses the Fair Youth’s faults and describes the young man’s ability to cloak them in goodness.

Filled with natural images that are used to describe the importance of the youth’s presence.

Describes the speaker’s inability to enjoy spring due to the absence of his lover.

Uses natural images to compare the Fair Youth’s beauty to a variety of different flowers.

Marks a turn in Shakespeare’s Fair Youth series in which he implores his muse to inspire him.

Directed at the speaker’s muse, who is continually failing to provide him with the inspiration he needs.

Depicts the nature of the speaker’s love for the Fair Youth and why he doesn’t always express it.

Describes how useless and feeble words are to describe his love for the Fair Youth.

Addresses the facts of aging and the possibility that the Fair Youth is affected just as much as anyone else is.

A poem about a writer’s love for a young man and his devotion to three specific themes.

One of the many poems that is part of the Fair Youth sequence: a series of poems that are addressed to an unknown young man.

A beautiful poem in which the speaker addresses how he and the Fair Youth are going to be memorialized.

Depicts the speaker’s love for the Fair Youth as unchanging, despite the ravages of old age.

A devotional sonnet written to the speaker’s “rose,” the Fair Youth.

Depicts the speaker’s wanderings and his desire to return to his true love.

Describes the speaker’s opinion of himself and the cure he’s seeking.

Describes how highly the speaker values the Youth’s opinion of him.

Depicts how obsessed and in love with the Fair Youth the speaker is.

A complex poem that deals with the eye/mind relationship and the love the speaker holds for the Fair Youth.

Expresses the speaker’s opinion about how much better the future is going to be than the past in regard to his relationship.

Shakespeare’s speaker is ruminating on love. He says that love never changes, and if it does, it is not true or real in the first place.

Asks the Fair Youth to consider the speaker’s mistakes while also understanding why he made them.

Discusses the complexities of the speaker’s relationship with the Youth and an important mistake he made.

A complex poem that contains the speaker’s apology for cheating on the Fair Youth with a woman.

Alludes to the speaker’s and the Youth’s infidelity.

A poem about being true to one’s self, admiring mistakes, and corruption.

An unusual sonnet in which the speaker describes throwing away a gift the Fair Youth gave him.

Depicts the ravages of time and how he sees himself, his love, and his character as beyond them.

A sonnet about the speaker’s love and how far above normal experiences it is.

A sonnet about what kind of love the speaker has to offer the Fair Youth.

The last Fair Youth sonnet. It concedes to the inevitability of death.

The first Dark Lady sonnet. It addresses the speaker’s mistress’s beauty and dark complexion.

The second Dark Lady sonnet. It depicts the speaker’s mistress playing an instrument and conveys the speaker’s lust for her.

Speaks on the physical and emotional power that lust wields.

Contrasts the Dark Lady’s looks with the conventional hyperboles used in contemporary sonnets.

A Dark Lady sonnet that addresses the Lady’s complexion and how the speaker loves her.

One of several sonnets addressed to the Dark Lady. It explores her pity and disdain for the speaker through images of her eyes.

Speaks on the speaker’s concern about the Dark Lady’s cruelty.

Addresses the Dark Lady who has seduced the Fair Youth.

Depicts the speaker’s unbridled lust for the Dark Lady and begs her for intercourse.

A complex sonnet in which the speaker uses his name to create  puns  and  allusions .

A serious sonnet about the difference between what the eyes see and what the heart/mind knows is right.

A poem about the deceitful relationship the speaker has with the Dark Lady.

A poem about the Dark Lady’s continuing infidelity and the speaker’s suffering.

Contains the speaker’s threats towards the Dark Lady if she doesn’t change her behavior.

Shakespeare addresses the Dark Lady, the object of his affections, discussing the fact that, although his senses rebel at the sound and sight and existence of the Lady, he loves her nevertheless. 

About the speaker’s relationship with the Dark Lady and how their affair is spiraling.

Depicts the speaker’s relationship through an image of a mother chasing chickens and abandoning her child.

Suggests that the Dark Lady is having a negative influence on the Fair Youth.

A fairly simple poem about a woman’s changing opinion of the speaker.

About the speaker’s relationship with the Dark Lady and how it’s taken his focus away from his spiritual health.

Compares the speaker’s love for the Dark Lady to an illness he can’t and won’t get rid of.

Describes how blinded the speaker has become due to his relationship with the Dark Lady.

Focuses on the speaker’s obsessive state of mind in regard to the Dark Lady.

Contains several questions the speaker addresses to his mistress, the Dark Lady.

Explores the speaker’s sexual desire for the Dark Lady.

Suggests that the relationship between the Dark Lady and the speaker is coming to an end. He’s failed in his attempts to rationalize her actions.

An interesting sonnet. It’s concerned with the speaker’s inability to cure his lovesickness.

Describes how the  speaker  attempted to alleviate his lovesickness. He inevitably failed, as he has throughout the rest of the sonnets.

The first 126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets were addressed to an unknown man called the ‘Fair Youth.’ The latter 28 sonnets were addressed to an unknown woman, known as the ‘dark lady.’

This isn’t as easy a question to answer since it depends on what is defined as ‘write.’ Shakespeare definitively wrote 37 plays but also had other plays. A lost play, ‘Cardenio,’ was attributed to him, whilst there are potentially a couple of others that were attributed to other people, but academics think Shakespeare wrote. All in all, the best answer is 37, but the number could easily go to 39 or even 40.

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Sonnet 130 Summary & Analysis by William Shakespeare

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"Sonnet 130" was written by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Though most likely written in the 1590s, the poem wasn't published until 1609. Like many other sonnets from the same period, Shakespeare's poem wrestles with beauty, love, and desire. He tries to find a more authentic, realistic way to talk about these things in the sonnet, and gleefully dismisses the highly artificial poems of praise his peers were writing. Shakespeare's poem also departs from his contemporaries in terms of formal structure — it is a new kind of sonnet—the "Shakespearean" sonnet.

• Read the full text of “Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”

The Full Text of “Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”

1 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; 

2 Coral is far more red than her lips' red; 

3 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; 

4 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 

5 I have seen roses damasked, red and white, 

6 But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 

7 And in some perfumes is there more delight 

8 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 

9 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 

10 That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 

11 I grant I never saw a goddess go; 

12 My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. 

13    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 

14    As any she belied with false compare.

“Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” Summary

“sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” themes.

Beauty and Love

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Love, Personality, and the Superficial

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; 

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;  And in some perfumes is there more delight  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know  That music hath a far more pleasing sound;  I grant I never saw a goddess go;  My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. 

Lines 13-14

   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare     As any she belied with false compare.

“Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” Symbols

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“Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

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Parallelism

End-stopped line, “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”

Rhyme scheme, “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” speaker, “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” setting, literary and historical context of “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”, more “sonnet 130: my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” resources, external resources.

Harryette Mullen's "Dim Lady" — Read the full text of Harryette Mullen's "Dim Lady," a rewriting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130.

"Sonnet 130" Glossary — A glossary and commentary on Sonnet 130 from Buckingham University.

1609 Quarto Printing of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 — An image of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 as it appeared in its first printing, in 1609.

Reading of "Sonnet 130" — Ian Midlane reads "Sonnet 130" for the BBC, introduced by some smooth jazz.

Blazon Lady — See an image of Charles Berger's blazon lady and read Thomas Campion's contemporaneous blazon. 

Sidney's Astrophil and Stella #9 — Read the full text of Sidney's earlier blazon, Astrophil and Stella #9.  

LitCharts on Other Poems by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Sonnet 129: Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time

Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth

Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes

Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws

Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

Sonnet 27: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"

Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire

Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments

Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore

Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")

Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

Sonnet 94: "They that have power to hurt"

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Take your pick of Shakespeare’s sonnets below, along with a modern English interpretation of each one aid understanding.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets published in his ‘quarto’ in 1609, covering themes such as the passage of time, mortality, love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy. The first 126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to a young man, and the last 28 addressed to a woman – a mysterious ‘dark lady’.

Jump to a section: Read all sonnets | Famous sonnets |  Publishing the sonnets | Sonnet dedications  

What is a Shakespearean sonnet?

Shakespeare’s sonnets are poems of expressive ideas and thoughts that are layered with multiple meanings, and always have two things in common:

1. All sonnets have fourteen lines

2. All sonnets are written in iambic pentameter

Read more about what a sonnet is , and iambic pentameter .

Read all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets

Take your pick from the list of Shakespeare sonnets below (or learn how to write a sonnet of your own!):

Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase

Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow

Sonnet 3: Look In Thy Glass, And Tell The Face Thou Viewest

Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend

Sonnet 5: Those Hours, That With Gentle Work Did Frame

Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter’s Ragged Hand Deface

Sonnet 7: Lo! In The Orient When The Gracious Light

Sonnet 8: Music To Hear, Why Hear’st Thou Music Sadly?

Sonnet 9: Is It For Fear To Wet A Widow’s Eye

Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bear’st Love To Any

Sonnet 11: As Fast As Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Grow

Sonnet 12: When I Do Count The Clock That Tells Time

Sonnet 13: O! That You Were Your Self! But, Love, You Are

Sonnet 14: Not From The Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck

Sonnet 15: When I Consider Everything That Grows

Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You A Mightier Way

Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe In My Verse In Time To Come

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?

Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou The Lion’s Paw

Sonnet 20: A Woman’s Face With Nature’s Own Hand Painted

Sonnet 21: So It Is Not With Me As With That Muse

Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old

Sonnet 23: As An Unperfect Actor On The Stage

Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Play’d The Painter and Hath Steel’d

Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are In Favour With Their Stars

Sonnet 26: Lord Of My Love, To Whom In Vassalage

Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste To My Bed

Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return In Happy Plight

Sonnet 29: When In Disgrace With Fortune and Men’s Eyes

Sonnet 30: When To The Sessions Of Sweet Silent Thought

Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts

Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day

Sonnet 33: Full Many A Glorious Morning I Have Seen

Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such A Beauteous Day

Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved At That Which Thou Hast Done

Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain

Sonnet 37: As A Decrepit Father Takes Delight

Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject To Invent

Sonnet 39: O! How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing

Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All

Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits

Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast It Is Not All My Grief

Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See

Sonnet 44: If The Dull Substance Of My Flesh Were Thought

Sonnet 45: That Thou Hast It Is Not All My Grief

Sonnet 46: Mine Eye And Heart Are At A Mortal War

Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye And Heart A League Is Took

Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way

Sonnet 49: Against That Time, If Ever That Time Come

Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way

Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse The Slow Offence

Sonnet 52: So Am I As The Rich, Whose Blessed Key

Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made

Sonnet 54: O! How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem

Sonnet 55: O! Not Marble, Nor The Gilded Monuments

Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force; Be It Not Said

Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave What Should I Do But Tend

Sonnet 58: That God Forbid, That Made Me First Your Slave

Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is

Sonnet 60: Like As The Waves Make Towards The Pebbled Shore

Sonnet 61: Is It Thy Will, Thy Image Should Keep Open

Sonnet 62: Sin Of Self-love Possesseth All Mine Eye

Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be As I Am Now

Sonnet 64: When I Have Seen By Time’s Fell Hand Defac’d

Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea

Sonnet 66: Tired For All These, For Restful Death I Cry

Sonnet 67: Ah! Wherefore With Infection Should He Live

Sonnet 68: In Days Long Since, Before These Last So Bad

Sonnet 69: Those Parts Of Thee That The World’s Eye Doth View

Sonnet 70: That Thou Art Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect

Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn For Me When I Am Dead

Sonnet 72: O! Lest The World Should Task You To Recite

Sonnet 73: That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold

Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest

Sonnet 75: So Are You To My Thoughts As Food To Life

Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse So Barren Of New Pride

Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear

Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee For My Muse

Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid

Sonnet 80: O! How I Faint When I Do Write Of You

Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph To Make

Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married To My Muse

Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need

Sonnet 84: Who Is It That Says Most, Which Can Say More

Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse In Manners Holds Her Still

Sonnet 86: Was It The Proud Sail Of His Great Verse

Sonnet 87: Farewell! Thou Art Too Dear For My Possessing

Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Dispos’d To Set Me Light

Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me For Some Fault

Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt; If Ever, Now

Sonnet 91: Some Glory In Ttheir Birth, Some In Their Skill

Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst To Steal Thyself Away

Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True

Sonnet 94: They That Have Power To Hurt, And Will Do None

Sonnet 95: How Sweet And Lovely Dost Thou Make The Shame

Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

Sonnet 97: How Like A Winter Hath My Absence Been

Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring

Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide

Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forget’st So Long

Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends

Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthen’d, Though More Weak In Seeming

Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth

Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old

Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry

Sonnet 106: When In The Chronicle Of Wasted Time

Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears, Nor The Prophetic Soul

Sonnet 108: What’s In The Brain That Ink May Character

Sonnet 109: O! Never Say That I Was False Of Heart

Sonnet 110: Alas! ‘Tis True, I Have Gone Here And There

Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide

Sonnet 112: Your Love And Pity Doth Th’ Impression Fill

Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is In My Mind

Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You

Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie

Sonnet 116: Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds

Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus: That I Have Scanted All

Sonnet 118: Like As To Make Our Appetites More Keen

Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk Of Siren Tears

Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now

Sonnet 121: ‘Tis Better To Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed

Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain

Sonnet 123: Thy Pyramids Built Up With Newer Might

Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But The Child Of State

Sonnet 125: Were’t Ought To Me I Bore The Canopy

Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who In Thy Pow’r

Sonnet 127: In The Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair

Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Play’st

Sonnet 129: Th’ Expense Of Spirit In A Waste Of Shame

Sonnet 130: My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

Sonnet 131: Thou Art As Tyrannous, So As Thou Art

Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I Love, And They, As Pitying Me

Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart To Groan

Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine

Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will

Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come So Near

Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool, Love, What Dost Thou To Mine Eyes

Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made Of Truth

Sonnet 139: O! Call Not Me To Justify The Wrong

Sonnet 140: Be Wise As Thou Art Cruel

Sonnet 141: In Faith I Do Not Love You With Mine Eyes

Sonnet 142: Love Is My Sin, And Thy Dear Virtue Hate

Sonnet 143: Lo, As A Careful Housewife Runs To Catch

Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have Of Comfort And Despair

Sonnet 145: Those Lips That Love’s Own Hand Did Make

Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, The Centre Of My Sinful Earth

Sonnet 147: My Love Is As A Fever Longing Still

Sonnet 148: O Me! What Eyes Hath Love Put In My Head

Sonnet 149: Canst Thou, O Cruel! Say I Love Thee Not

Sonnet 150: O! From What Power Hast Thou This Powerful Might

Sonnet 151: Love Is Too Young To Know What Conscience Is

Sonnet 152: In Loving Thee Thou Kow’st I Am Forsworn

Sonnet 153: Cupid Laid By His Brand And Fell Asleep

Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God Lying Once Asleep

This complete collection of 154 sonnets with explanations is available in an ebook to download now .

Picture of the famous Shakespeare sonnets folio

Famous Sonnets By Shakespeare

Shakespeare published 154 sonnets , and although they are all poems of the highest quality, there are some that have entered deeply into the consciousness of our culture to become the most famous Shakespeare sonnets . This handful of sonnets are quoted regularly by people at all levels of modern western life – sometimes without even realizing that they are quoting a line from Shakespeare.

In our humble opinion the 8 sonnets below represent Shakespeare’s most famous words in the sonnet form:

Sonnet 18:  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Perhaps the most famous of all the sonnets is Sonnet 18, where Shakespeare addresses a young man to whom he is very close. It would be impossible to say whether Shakespeare was an arrogant man because we don’t know what he was like. We also don’t know whether he thought he was the ‘great,’ immortal writer that we regard him as today. However, after describing the young man’s great beauty, he suggests that his poetry is ‘eternal’ and ends by stating that as long as there are people who can still read, the sonnet, and therefore the description of the young man’s beauty, will still be there.

Sonnet 30:  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

An interesting take on aging and love. The narrator describes the things that people agonize over as they descend into old age – all the regrets and the pain of reliving the mistakes he has made. It’s full of agony but when he thinks about his beloved all the regrets and pain evaporate.

Sonnet 33:  Full many a glorious morning have I seen

This is a poem about loss; the loss of a loved one. Shakespeare approaches it by expressing the contrast in the way we feel when the morning sun is shining brightly and when it’s obscured by clouds, making the world a forlorn place. When he was loved by the beloved it was like the glorious morning, but now, having lost the beloved, it feels like an overcast and gloomy morning. He concludes that he doesn’t condemn the beloved because human frailty, even among the best of humanity, is just as much a part of nature as the obscuring clouds are.

Sonnet 73:  That time of year thou mayst in me behold

The narrator of Sonnet 73 is approaching death and thinking about how different it is from being young. It’s like the branch of a tree where birds once sang but the birds have gone and the leaves have fallen, leaving only a few dry yellow leaves. It’s like the twilight of a beautiful day, where there is only the black night ahead. It’s like the glowing ashes of a fire that once roared. The things that one gave him life have destroyed his life. From that experience, he has learned that one has to love life as strongly as one can because it will end all too soon.

Sonnet 104:  To me, fair friend, you never can be old

Here Shakespeare expresses the love one person has for another by showing how the beauty of the beloved doesn’t change in the eyes of the lover. He shows time passing through the seasons and the years, everything changing. Except for the beauty of the beloved. He goes further by saying that no matter how long the world will endure, even though the beloved is long dead there will never be another as beautiful.

Sonnet 116:  Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments

There are two striking definitions of love that we refer to again and again. Perhaps the most popular of the two is in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians ( Corinthians 13: 4-8 ):

Love is patient, love is kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Paul’s text is as well known as Sonnet 116 because it is used in most weddings as the young couple stands before the minister. But Shakespeare’s sonnet employs an amazing array of poetic devices to convey the eternal nature of love. Shakespeare ends by staking everything on his observations about love by asserting that if he is wrong about it then no-one ever wrote anything and no-one ever loved.

Sonnet 129:  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Sonnet 129 is an interesting take on the imperative force of lust, but its ultimate shallowness. Everyone knows how shallow and guilt-producing lust is but very few men can avoid it. Shakespeare shows how lust brings out the very worst in people and the extremes they will go to. And then he explains the guilt that follows the satisfaction of one’s lust.

Sonnet 130:  My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Shakespeare is expressing the kind of love that has nothing to do with the beloved’s looks. He satirizes the usual way of expressing love for a woman – praising her lips and her hair, the way she walks, and all the things that a young man may rave about when he thinks about his beloved. What he does is invert those things, assert that his beloved is ugly, ungainly, bad-smelling, etc, but ends by saying that his love for her is as ‘rare’ as that of any young man who writes flatteringly about the object of his love.

Interested in sonnets from other authors? Check out our sonnet examples from highly regarded poets who do things a little differently to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Publishing Shakespeare’s Sonnets

A widely held belief contends that Shakespeare’s sonnets were published without his consent. Had Shakespeare endorsed their publication, many believe he would have provided their printer with an authoritative text and a dedication. However, “Shakes-peares Sonnets” contains no dedication from the author and the text has many errors. Some critics also maintain that some sonnets are unfinished and that the sequence is too incoherent to have been intended for publication.

Exponents of this view have argued that someone whom Shakespeare trusted betrayed him by giving the poems to their first publisher, Thomas Thope, or that a thief, perhaps motivated by animosity or personal profit, seized the poets manuscript and sold it on. Some hold that the publication of the sonnets surely upset Shakespeare, whose poems dealt with scandalous forms of love; homoerotic and adulterous. Others variously insist that these subjects are more shocking to post-Victorian readers than to Jacobean ones; that, whilst the sonnets voice strong feelings, these were entirely appropriate to the form; and that emotions expressed in his sonnets do not mirror Shakespeare’s own any more than those of  dramatic characters in his plays .

Who Were The Shakespeare Sonnets Dedicated To?

Certain features of  the sonnet form – not least the first-person narrative and themes of love – give the impression of offering direct access to their author’s inner world. Since there has long been intense curiosity about the ‘youth’ addressed in the sonnets, clues to his identity have also been extracted with no little strain from the frontispiece of the first edition. The author of this dedication, T.T, was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher. But the identity of the “begetter” of the sonnets, “Mr W. H.” remains a mystery. Some think this is a misprint for “Mr W. S.” or “Mr W. Sh.”, as in William Shakespeare. Others suspect that the “begetter” refers to the scoundrel who may have conveyed the poems to Thorpe against Shakespeare’s wishes.  But the most widely held assumption is that the “beggetter” must be the person who inspired the “ensuing sonnets”, the majority of which address a young man.

Working from the scant evidence offered by the initials W. H., literary detectives have proposed many candidates. One is  Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton , to whom Shakespeare dedicated  Venus and Adonis  and  The Rape of Lucrece  in the mid-1590s. Another is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whose name figures among those to whom the First Folio was dedicated in 1623. A third candidate is Sir William Hervey, stepfather of the Earl of Southampton, who may have commissioned lyrics urging the young man to marry and produce an heir – the first 17 sonnets of the sequence treat this theme. Of these candidates, however, two were earls and one was a gentleman, referred to as “Sir”. None would have been called “Mr” save by error or to suggest intimacy. In the end, these probing enigmas of Shakespeare’s sonnets are forced to speculate; information is poor, scarce and inconclusive.

The numbers behind the sonnets

Who knew that Shakespeare’s sonnets and mathematics were so linked?

In the super-interesting video below, Professor Roger Bowley talks about the tight constraints – and shape – that numbers gave to Shakespeare’s sonnets.

What’s your take on the Shakespeare sonnets listed above? Let us know by joining in the conversation in the comments section below!

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I verry mutch like sonnet154

I proposed a hypothesis revealing the meaning of the mysterious Dedication – see my article `Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Riddle of Dedication` https://vixra.org/abs/2102.0107

The sonnets, especially 34, suggest to me that Shakespeare may have been unhappy in his relationships. It makes me sad.

nice, thanks, his works are more than meets the eye!

What an impressionable Mark he left throughout his generations still centuries later We’re still learning from him A true composure of his pieces Shows how tangible one’s touch can be on time I have an original William Shakespeare ‘The tragedy of McBeth’ 1673 1908 edition I cherish

Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets, initially published in 1609 in the ‘quarto’, encapsulates a rich tapestry of themes that reflect the complexities of human emotions and experiences. Central themes that reverberate through these sonnets include the passage of time, mortality, love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy, inviting readers into a profound exploration of the human condition.

A prominent theme across the sonnets is the passage of time and its inexorable effects on human life. Shakespeare grapples with the fleeting nature of time, expressing the inevitable march towards mortality and the fleeting nature of youth and beauty. He frequently uses imagery related to seasons, days, and hours to underscore the transience of life and the urgency to seize the present moment.

Love, arguably the most pervasive theme in the sonnet sequence, is depicted in various shades – from idealized and romantic to tumultuous and conflicted. The first 126 sonnets, addressed to a young man, explore themes of infatuation, adoration, friendship, and the desire for legacy and immortality through procreation. These sonnets delve into the complexities of platonic and romantic love, capturing the profound emotions experienced by the speaker.

In the latter part of the sequence, the focus shifts to a ‘dark lady,’ an enigmatic woman who is the subject of the remaining 28 sonnets. Here, the sonnets take a more provocative turn, exploring themes of lust, jealousy, betrayal, and the darker aspects of romantic relationships. The portrayal of this ‘dark lady’ offers a contrast to the idealized love depicted in the earlier sonnets and delves into the complexities of human desires and emotions. Shakespeare’s sonnets remain a timeless exploration of the human psyche, revealing the multifaceted nature of human emotions and experiences. The duality between the idealized love for the young man and the more tumultuous relationships with the ‘dark lady’ provides a holistic depiction of the highs and lows of love and the inevitability of the passage of time and mortality.

Serenity Wortham, yours an articulate and eloquent description. Thank you so very much.

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