Poems

by William Shakespeare

“Lie quietly, and hear a little more; / Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: /To make thee hate the hunting of the boar, /Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize, /Applying this to that, and so to so; /For love can comment upon every woe.” - William Shakespeare, Venus And Adonis

Besides his plays, William Shakespeare wrote many poems throughout his life, including 154 sonnets plus many lyric descriptions from the Greek and Roman mythology like Venus and Adonis or The Rape of Lucrece. In all of them, the Bard of Avon twisted and bent the rules of the Old English language creating a unique and stupendous lyric masterpiece that awe us to this day.

Genres: Poetry, Shakespeare, Classics, Fiction, Literature, British Literature, Plays

118 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1609

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite Shakespearean work so far. Tragic, delicate, and beautiful. Some parts of the poetry felt like listening to a Lana del Rey song 💋✨

[Antonella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre es un placer leer a Shakespeare sobre todo en su idioma original.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not blown away as I thought I'd be. I love Shakespeare's plays so I was quite happy to read his poetry..
But I found long poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" rather boring. I haven't even finished "The Rape of Lucrece", I skipped it and went to sonnets. Sonnets were quite good. I really liked some sonnets while some were meh. But all in all I liked sonnets better than the longer poems. The only longer poem I liked was "A lover's complaint", that one was quite fun to read.

But the biggest problem for me was the language and way it was written. I had a hard time understanding since English isn't my first language so I had to concentrate real hard to understand what's going on in some of the poems. Wish I had this book in Croatian rather than English, maybe I'd enjoy it more.

[David]

There's a line in "Lucrece" that rings ironically true: "To see sad sights moves more than hear them told." There is a little too much telling in both "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece." While I love the sonnets, I do tend to feel that Shakespeare's gift was not for the long poem. Nonetheless, it was good to review these after many years. The Arden edition notes are, as always, copious and helpful.

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This delightful little book was purchased at the Shakespeare & co. bookshop!
Anyway, this is by a group called "Everyman's Library Pocket poets" (they do other title books such as Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Rossetti etc!). It contains most of Shakespeare's sonnets, extracts from longer poems, songs from the plays and soliloquies from plays also.
This is such a cute little book to own, with it's own gold ribbon bookmark to complete its look. The content is easy to read and very enjoyable if you like Shakespeare and perhaps want to not read whole plays, just viewing famous extracts and some of Shakespeare's other praised works like his poems.

[Dayna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the sonnets are worthy of a 5, and some get a 2. Hard to rate this one. I wasn't crazy about the long poems, "Venus and Adonis," and "The Rape of Lucrece," although Tarquinus trying to reason himself out of raping Lucrece is pretty fascinating: "What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?/ A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy./ Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?/ Or sells eternity to get a toy?" Beautiful.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poetical works of Shakespeare are two long narrative poems, 154 sonnets and a few random shorter pieces. The narrative poems have a habit of never saying something in a line that they could say in three, but even so The Rape of Lucrece is quite worth reading. Because the sonnet is a fairly condensed form, I always thought 154 sonnets would be fairly easy to get through. For the record, 154 is a lot of sonnets.

[Eduard Gafton]

To read as part of "The Oxford Shakespeare, Histories"

Works to be reviewed: A Song, Verses upon the Stanley Tomb at Tong, Written upon the west end thereof, On Ben Jonson, An Epitaph on Elias James, An extemporary epitaph on John Combe, a noted usurer, Another Epitaph on John Combe, Upon the King, Epitaph on Himself

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected to be a bit more wow-ed by this, in all honesty. I also didn't really see the point of just taking parts of some of his plays out of context and providing them as separate poems here. Those sections are so much more powerful in the context of the actual plays they stem from.

[Nairy]

didn't read this book specifically, but read most of his poetry and sonnets... i like his works alot.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't review my favorite piece of literature of all time, so there.

[Rachel (Sfogs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good poems!

[Stephanie Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshing change from Shakespeare's plays. Beautiful prose in the form of poetry.

[Clouphas Lebotse]

this books are interesting please help me to open for reading at the moment I can't open and read

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Venus and Adonis - hilarious and lyrical. The Master in full flow.

[Pádraic · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd way to end reading the complete works, a task I began (without really knowing I'd begun) some 15 years ago. Hard pressed to claim the essentialness of most of the contents here, really.

Venus and Adonis is overlong and tedious, though not without its moments of beauty; The Phoenix and the Turtle feels like juvenalia; The Passionate Pilgrim contains poems apparently clearly not written by Shakespeare, so who knows why it's included here; and I can't think of anything at all to say about A Lover's Complaint.

However, the whole thing is worth the price of admission for The Rape of Lucrece. Dark, gripping, propulsive, getting far too far into its characters' innermost thoughts than anyone would like to be. In terms of emotive and poetic power it's up there with any of his best work, and it's a shame it took me this long to get around to it--though I'm also glad there was something at the end of this journey worth waiting for.

[Riccardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

“In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.”

Nemmeno Ungaretti riesce a rendere davvero poetico l’arido e limitato lessico shakespeariano.

[James Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scholarly version of Shakespeare's Poetry

The book is an excellent study of Shakespeare's poetry, including all the sonnets.
There are copious notes all the way through the work to provide e!elucidation of archaic terms and words.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinda hard to give one rating to a collection of nearly 160 different poems but, sure, five stars. Some are better than others but obviously it’s all very good overall and this edition has some good introductions and notes that I really enjoyed reading.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction was informative and helpful. Appendices containing passages from various sources was much appreciated.

[Lorraine Sherzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest writer of all time. I reread him and always find something new.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really a fan

[Matias Cerizola · Rating 2 out of 5]

La traducción no es la mejor.

[Victoria & David Williams]

Housekeeping: This edition is, of course, only available in hardcover.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read
A Lover's Complaint (July 2)
The Passionate Pilgrim (July 3)
The Phoenix and the Turtle (December 24)
Venue and Adonis (April 13 - 17))
The Rape of Lucrece (April 30 - May 4)

These poems are at difficult in various ways.

[Jonathan]

None

[ale :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

he wants to fuck and get you pregnant but he says it in a romantic way 💗

[Cws]

JC-Sha