The Poems: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, A Lover's Complaint

by William Shakespeare, John Roe (Editor)

This second edition of Shakespeare's narrative poems contains an introductory section on recent critical interpretations. Fully annotated and introduced, it includes all the poems which can be confidently assigned to Shakespeare, excluding the Sonnets: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim and A Lover's Complaint. An updated reading list completes the edition.

Genres: Poetry, Shakespeare, Classics, Classic Literature, Literature, Fiction, Drama

326 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1968

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

[Oguz Akturk]

YouTube kanalımda Shakespeare'in hayatı, mutlaka okunması gereken kitapları ve kronolojik okuma sırası hakkında bilgi edinebilirsiniz: https://youtu.be/rGxh2RVjmNU

Shakespeare'i tanımak ve onun yazdığı ilk yazıları okumak mı istiyorsun? O zaman Aşk ve Anlatı Şiirleri'nden başlamak senin için iyi ve isabetli bir başlangıç olabilir.

1593 yılındaki Venüs ve Adonis, 1594 yılındaki Lükres'in İğfali, 1601 yılındaki Anka ile Kumru ve 1609 yılındaki Bir Aşıkın Yakınması eserlerini içeren bu kitap, Shakespeare'in esas Shakespeare olmadan önceki zamanlarında hangi antik metinlerden etkilenip onları kendi Shakespeare yolculuğu için nasıl kullanacağı konusunda spoilerlar da veriyor aslında bize.

Venüs ile Adonis eserinde aslında Shakespeare'in antik metinlerden nasıl beslendiğini görebileceğimiz gibi ileriki oyunlarında kullanacağı Homeros ve Ovidius esinlenmelerini de nasıl yapabileceğinin sınırlarını görebilirsiniz.

Lükres'in İğfali eserinde Tarquinius karakterini gördüğünüz zaman belki ilerideki bir Othello karakterinin parçasını, Titus Andronicus kitabının oluşumunu da görebilirsiniz rahatlıkla. Cinsellik ve kıskançlığın aynı potada eritilmesi Shakespeare'in erken dönem eserlerinden olgunluk dönem eserlerine kadar pek çok oyununa etki etmiştir zira.

Yazarın edebiyat hayatındaki başlangıç eserleri olduğu için ve bunları da 29-30 yaşlarında yazdığı için edebi toyluğu olduğu aşikar ama insanın o yaşlarda bile böyle metinler yazabilmesi muhteşem bence.

Eğer Shakespeare’e bir yerden başlamak istiyorsan Aşk ve Anlatı Şiirleri, Veronalı İki Soylu Delikanlı, Hırçın Kız, Titus Andronicus, Yanlışlıklar Komedyası ve Güller Savaşı’nı konu alan 7 tarihi oyununu okuyarak başlayabilirsin.

[Alp Turgut]

Shakespeare'in Homeros, Virgilius ve Ovidius'un izinden giderek kaleme aldığı destansı şiirleri ve aşk sonelerini okuyucuya sunan "Aşk ve Anlatı Şiirleri / Poems of Love and Narration", destansı şiirlerle Shakespeare'in ne kadar yetenekli olduğunu bir kere daha kanıtlayan bir eser. "Venüs ile Adonis" eseriyle güzellik tanrıçasının isteksiz bir genci baştan çıkarmak uğrundaki ısrarlı çabalarını, "Lükres'in İğfali"yle kocasına sadık soylu bir kadına şehvetten gözü dönmüş bir prensin tecavüzünün öyküsünü bizlere sunan kitabın sonlarına doğru yer verilen Shakespeare'e ait olduğu şüpheli soneler ise ne yazık ki yeterince başarılı olmamakla beraber eserin de değerini biraz aşağılara çekiyor. Shakespeare'i yazar olarak daha iyi tanıyabilmek adına kesinlikle okunmalı.

25.07.2019
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo...

[Kate♡]

4/5stars

Venus and Adonis is gr8

[Darwin8u]

Shakespeare's narrative poems, for me, fit in a valley between his most lyrical plays (Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II) and his sonnets. They are great, just not as good as either. They seem almost to be aborted efforts at plays. Perhaps, Shakespeare realized while working on Venus and Adonis that it wasn't going to really work as a play, but hell, since he'd already written a couple hundred lines of iambic poetry, he might as well keep going and finish it. It is a shame really (from the perspective of his lyrical poems) that he was so brilliant at his plays and sonnets. These seem almost to be after thoughts. Hell, they WERE after thoughts. I read all of his plays and his sonnets and figured I was done, but remembered there was something else. They REALLY do deserve more attention than they got from me and from the world.

[leynes]

Oh, Willie, what do I do with you? I haven't been particularly keen on checking out Shakespeare's Narrative Poems, since I was left rather underwhelmed by his Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint. We all know that Shakespeare is capable of beautiful lyricism and the blank verse of most of his plays is impeccable, but the poetry in itself is a bit ... disappointing. There were certainly some gems in this collection but there were also heaps of garbage.

Venus and Adonis - 1 star
Oh boy, this was by far the worst poem of this collection. Spanning 35 pages of complete fuckery, Willie tells his own version of the story of the Goddess of Love and the extremely handsome Adonis. It's a mess. It was (apparently) published in 1593 and Shakespeare referred to it as "the first heir of my invention," which basically means that he is shitting on his own plays published prior to that, not even deigning them as true art. What a mood!

The poem in itself is absolutely creepy. Venus looks like a thot who can't take no from an answer. I don't know why Shakespeare diverted so far from Ovid's original, but apparently, the Bard was more interested in seeing Venus run around naked and trying to keep Adonis from hunting by desperately trying (and failing at the same time) to seduce him. Eeehh. No, thank you. Venus is constantly offering her body to Adonis in graphic terms and all I could think was ENOUGH ALREADY.

The Rape of Lucrece - 5 stars
I told ya'll this would be a rollercoaster of emotions (and ratings)... Willie really isn't a consistent queen. From the first page, I knew I would adore this particular narrative poem. I am a sucker for Roman legends and I also find it interesting how poetry is a genre through which you can tell epic tales (unless the bullshit that Venus and Adonis were up to).

The premise of this poem is a hot mess: One evening, after a battle, Collatine describes his wife, Lucrece, as the most beautiful woman to other Roman soldiers. Not shortly afterwards, Tarquin decides that he has to have Lucrece for himself. He is overcome by lust, steals into her chamber and rapes her. The rape is described in vivid scenes and sometimes quite hard to stomach, but Shakespeare really managed to capture Lucrece's horror and desperation. However, he's still a misogynist, so don't get your hopes up too much. Lucrece says herself that she has to die because she is no longer "pure" and "chaste"... Cannot fucking relate.

Before her suicide (since we all know Roman culture is stabbing yourself to prove a point), she confides into her husband. He vows to avenge her. Along with his friend Brutus, they carry Lucrece's body through the streets of Rome. The angered citizens banish Tarquin and his family. So ... happy end, right?? (Ugh.)

So, this poem is hella messy and displays some very questionable values. Nonetheless, I adored it since Shakespeare's writing reaches his height here. Just for the aesthetic reason alone, I had to give it 5 stars.

The Phoenix and Turtle - 3.5 stars
Only two pages long but utterly confusing. This is the poem that keeps scholars up at night. It's that obscure. In it, Willie describes a funeral arranged for the deceased Phoenix and Turtledove, respectively emblems of perfection and of devoted love (probably). Some birds are invited, but others excluded. It goes on to state that the love of the birds created a perfect unity which transcended all logic and material fact. So, Willie is basically trying to say that LOVE IS DEAD. Or... is he? There are so many different interpretations of these two fucking pages out there, my head is spinning. I can't keep up.

The Passionate Pilgrim - 1 star
Ugh, this one was bad. It was originally published in 1599 as an anthology of 20 poems. Two of which would later turn into sonnets and three of which were extracted from Love's Labour's Lost. Ehh. I wasn't impressed with this at all. Some of these poems have been contributed to other writers and a part of me really wants to believe that ... because they're just sooo bad. Whiny love poetry that no one needs in their life.

Shall I Die? - 2 stars
Not sure what the purpose of this is. This nine-verse love lyric was ascribed to Shakespeare in a manuscript collection of verses probably written in the late 1630s. However, his authorship cannot be regarded as certain. I thought it was super cheesy but not as bad as The Passionate Pilgrim.

The Epitaphs - 2.5 stars
These were wild. I didn't know that you were allowed to write such sarcastic and dark epitaphs for your friends. Willie and I seem to have a similar sense of humour. LOL. For example, the epitaph for Combe makes a satirical comment on Combe's money-lending at 10 per cent interest. The verse says that he lent money at one-in-ten, and it's ten-to-one he'll end up in hell. Like, what a mood.

An anecdote recorded in the mid-17th century has Jonson beginning an epitaph to himself with the conventional "Here lies Ben Jonson ...", and Shakespeare completing it with the words "... who while he lived was a slow thing / And now being dead is no thing." RUDE. ;)

[Z.]

"'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!"

[Using this space to rate and review "The Phoenix and the Turtle," "A Lover's Complaint," and the various poems included in The Passionate Pilgrim, as I've already reviewed Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece separately. My star rating here would be higher if those two were included.]

Well, with the exception of some apocrypha I'm not very interested in at present, I've finished Shakespeare! Since I'm planning to do a recap of the whole experience later I'll refrain from making concluding remarks here, other than to say this was about as underwhelming an ending to the whole thing as I could have had--none of these odds and ends interested me very much at all.

"The Phoenix and the Turtle" (the turtle here being a turtle dove, not a shelled reptile) is 67 lines about the funeral of the two titular birds, who were also lovers. The allegorical or fablelike subject matter feels a little odd for Shakespeare, and the diction is so convoluted that even having read... well, all of his work (sorry) I barely knew what was being said most of the time (though it must be said I also didn't try very hard). It was printed in 1601 in a collection that also included work by Ben Jonson and George Chapman, among others, and per Wiki it's been called "the first great published metaphysical poem." The word "published" feels like it's doing a lot of heavy lifting there; I don't know if John Donne meets that qualification, but if he does I'm sticking with him.

"A Lover's Complaint" is a 330ish-line piece first included in a 1609 print edition of the sonnets, comprising a poetic monologue by a "maid" lamenting that she's been loved and left by an attractive young man. Apparently (again, per Wiki) the "female-voiced complaint" was a recognized poetic form of the era, but as this was my first encounter with one I don't have much of a frame of reference. It's a passable piece but nothing to excite my interest after so much better Shakespeare, and there's apparently some doubt he wrote it at all.

The Passionate Pilgrim is a collection of sonnets and lyrics printed under Shakespeare's name in the late 1590s, but only a handful of the poems are actually believed to be his. Taken as a whole it's the worst of the bunch, and most or all of the Shakespeare selections can already be found among his sonnets or in Love's Labour's Lost. Still, it's mildly interesting that several of the (probably non-Shakespearean) poems tackle the now-familiar Venus and Adonis theme. In my review of Shakespeare's take on that legend I wrote that "You could imagine this being done in a winking and lascivious way, with a male author clearly shaking his head at a young man not taking an opportunity for free sex with a beautiful woman"--wouldn't you know, that's exactly what these poets do with the material.

I'm also amused by the fact that Shakespeare was evidently a big enough celebrity by this point that his name was being used to sell a pirated collection that also includes pieces by, for instance, the recently-deceased Christopher Marlowe. I imagine that might have tickled him as well, if he wasn't too annoyed by the bad poetry to care.

[Phil]

The two long narrative poems, Venus & Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, form part of my reading of Shakespeare's works in (estimated) chronological order of writing.

In 1592, plague (and possibly political machinations using plague as a convenient excuse to subdue free speech) led to the closure of London's theatres for almost two years. At the time, this was terrible news for Shakespeare who, with his Henry VI trilogy and Richard III had just had a series of great successes and must have been itching to get on with whatever was next planned, but all this was replaced with either expulsion to the provinces or enforced leisure.

That Shakespeare was making other writers uncomfortable and more than a touch jealous is clear from Robert Greene's peevish "Groats-Worth of Witte" in which he complains about uneducated, non-university educated actor players who have the audacity to - good grief, the cheek - *write*!

"for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey."

The reference to "tygers hart wrapt in a players hyde" is a direct misquote of the line from Henry VI about Margaret D'Anjou, "a tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide". So - it's clear that Shakespeare was not only famous, he was ruffling many authors' feathers who didn't consider him U enough to enter their esteemed society (a snobbishness that continues to this day among those who insist that Shakespeare didn't exist, but was actually a nobleman's (some even bizarrely believe it was Queen Elizabeth herself) pseudonym.

However ... the enforced break turned out for posterity to be of huge value, because Shakespeare used to time to hone his art, especially his poetry, and his ability to put great ideas and thoughts into brief beautifully-turned words. When he returned to plays his obsession with seneca-style revenge tragedy had gone and he blossomed into the full-flowering of his middle-period, and thanks for this can largely be put towards the time, thought and energy put into these poems.

So, on to the poems themselves. I must say that before I read these I'd never read any of Shakespeare's poetry beyond a selection of the Sonnets (which will come later in this project). In 1593 and 1594 these two poems were published, dedicated to the Earl of Southampton who appears to have patronised the writer and they were an enormous success. Venus and Adonis was the first work to appear on bookstands with William Shakespeare's name emblazoned on the title-page and it went through 7 editions in the next fews years - an enormous popularity when you take into account the low-level of literacy, lack of leisure time to dedicate to reading outside the upper and merchant classes and high expense of buying a printed book compared with going to the theatre. So one could say that up until the mid-1590s Shakespeare was much better known as "the writer of Venus and Adonis" than he was as a writer of plays.

The two poems deal with similar subjects - that of unreciprocated lust - but they are treated in drastically different ways. Venus and Adonis is an comic-erotic poem in which Venus falls head over heels for a prudish, inexperienced boy who is interested only in hunting and finds girls a boring distraction leading him down the primrose path to sin. Venus uses all her metaphysical reasoning (reminscent of Donne's poems like The Flea) to persuade him to love her, physically and emotionally, but despite her strength (she plucks him from his horse and carries him to a grassy bank) the closest she comes to ravishing him is when she falls to the floor in a swoon at his rude chiding and passionately kisses him as he tries to revive her with the kiss of life. The poem, with its erotic language and titilating description was a big hit with young courtiers who all had a copy hidden in their breast to read to their loves or late at night alone, makes a change towards the end though and when Adonis is gored to death by a wild boar (metaphorically raped) Venus' grief is real and never mocked and hugely moving.

The Rape of Lucrece is completely different. Whereas the idea of the goddess of Love ravishing a young man can be treated with levity, the forceful gagging and rape of Lucrece by the Roman king's son Tarquin cannot possibly be treated in the same manner. This poem is an extended grave analysis of the psychological trauma caused by rape - the self-loathing, guilt, self-blame, the irrational and unfounded reasoning by the victim that it was their fault that they somehow brought it on themselves, the idea that everyone can read what's happened on their face. It's all here in the poem, all expressed with a formal and (already) archaic rhyme scheme of ABABBCC.

Echoes of these poems are either heard in earlier plays (the reference to unreleased love / lust being like a stoppered oven that will explode reminds you of the lines "Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is." in Titus Andronicus - and the guilty, lustful, sinful walk of Tarquin towards Lucrece's bedroom is directly referenced in not only Macbeth, but also Cymbeline and Julius Ceasar.

Ultimately, I was surprised by these poems. They're a touch formal for modern tastes, but I don't believe that their importance within the development of Shakespeare's art can be overstated.

[Katsuro]

There. I did it. I finished his complete works. I almost can't believe I did it, but I did.

I'm having crisps today. It's a special occasion, after all.

[payton ✿]

alright i read all of shakespeare’s major poems. all of the sonnets too. mostly because i had to for my shakespeare’s poetry class. 🙃

here’s the thing, i don’t get shakespeare. i don’t get renaissance lit. you might ask, how are you surviving studying english then? because wow, shakespeare is studied a LOT within this major… and the answer is i don’t know.

i recognize the foundation that shakespeare built for literature, but unfortunately, it just isn’t my cup of tea. i can get behind shakespeare’s plays more than his poetry, and i know i am devastating my professor by saying this. sorry. 😮

i’m all about poems, movies, books, plays, etc. that display the human condition… which is precisely what shakespeare did and why his work is still taught today. but… man it just wasn’t fun reading any of this. renaissance reading is just laborious and tough to do.

[Metin Yılmaz]

Biraz uzun bir okumayla bitirdim. Sindirerek okunması gereken, her sayfada her satırda ayrı ayrı anlamların çıkarılabileceği özenli şiirler. Özellikle Lükres’in İğfali ve Venüs ile Adonis eşsiz bir akıcılıkla ilerliyor. Çevirinin zorluğunu da hesaba katarsak, Talat Sait Halman ne kadar büyük bir iş çıkarmış görmüş oluyoruz.
Bir önemli not kendime, bu kitabı okumamla beraber, Shakespeare’in tüm eserlerini okumuş bulunuyorum. Kendime koyduğum büyük bir hedefi tamamlamanın haklı gururunu yaşıyorum vs gibi klasik bir yorum yazacaktım ama vazgeçtim.
Bazı eserler vardır bir değil bir kaç kez okunması gereken. İşte Shakespeare’in eserleri de bu tip eserlerden. O yüzden bazılarının tekrar okumalarını yapacağım. Bana derseniz hangileri en çok aklında kaldı? Elbette tarih serisi derim. Kral Henry Sonrasında Fırtına, Hamlet, Othello ve elbette bir diğer klasik olan Romeo ve Juliet.

[Matthew]

Time and a changing language make these poems (the Rape of Lucrece & Venus and Adonis) less powerful and more uneven reading than they must have been to their original readers. But the brilliance still shines through - even if I only caught it intermittently. The structure of each poem is interesting, and the sometimes odd choices made more sense through the topical interpretation given by Clare Asquith in Shakespeare and the Resistance, which I read concurrently.

Those who doubt that Shakespeare wrote with a topical, allegorical or concealed significance would do well to consider The Phoenix and Turtle - the third and by far the shortest poem included in my edition - which has force and beauty, but clearly refer to a real-world pair of lovers, whose characteristics are sometimes obliquely described but remain mysterious, and whose identities must have been known to (at least some) of Shakespeare's audience.

[Chris Webster]

These are surely the most underrated works by Shakespeare. Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece are both astonishingly good, so much so that I can't believe they're not taught more (or maybe they are?) I guess the difference is that they're much less subtle than the most brilliant moments of the tragedies, but still, their sheer rhetorical power is insane.
I may have found my new favorite line in Shakespeare: "For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?", as Tarquinius makes his way to Lucrece's room. What a poem.

[Laura]

I read Venus and Adonis last night, and it's now my absolute favorite Poem. It's simply Brilliant. Even though I've been a fan of Shakspeares for about ever, he really out did himself on this one. It was just so freaking INTENSE!

[Jeff]

Although the narrative poems don't rank among Shakespeare's very best work, there is still a lot to absorb in these pages, particularly with Venus and Adonis, which has a manic sense of humor woven throughout the Bard's fresh take on a tragic tale from classical mythology.

[Ben Truong]

The Poems: Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece, the Phoenix and the Turtle, the Passionate Pilgrim, a Lover's Complaint is a collection of all five poems that are attributed to William Shakespeare (sans the sonnets).

Venus and Adonis (★★★★☆) is a narrative poem, which tells the story of Venus, the goddess of Love and her unrequited love and of her attempted seduction of Adonis, an extremely handsome young man, who would rather go hunting. The poem is pastoral, and at times erotic, comic, and tragic. It contains discourses on the nature of love, and observations of nature.

The Rape of Lucrece (★★★★☆) is a narrative poem about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia. It retells the historical event – the rape of the noblewomen Lucrece, which was the cause of a rebellion that overthrew the Roman monarchy and led to the transition of Roman government from a kingdom to a republic.

The Phoenix and the Turtle (★★★☆☆) is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love. The poem describes a funeral arranged for the deceased Phoenix and Turtledove, respectively emblems of perfection and of devoted love. It goes on to state that the love of the birds created a perfect unity which transcended all logic and material fact and concludes with a prayer for the dead lovers.

The Passionate Pilgrim (★★★☆☆) is an anthology of twenty poems, which was collected and attributed to a W. Shakespeare, but only five of which are considered authentically Shakespearean (I, II, III, V, and XVI), three of which are from Love's Labour's Lost.

A Lover's Complaint (★★★★☆) is a narrative poem about a young woman weeping at the edge of a river and throwing many tokens of love into the river. An old man nearby approaches the woman and asks the reason for her sorrow and she responds by telling him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her.

These poems are written rather well. The narrative poems – especially the longer ones are written better than the others. The subject matter of the narrative poems and to an extent the allegorical poem: The Phoenix and the Turtle, show the darker side of love – if one could call them love. The outlier of the poems is The Passionate Pilgrim, which the twenty poems have a greater range.

This Cambridge University Press edition of the anthology has an introductory essay written by John Roe from the University of York, textual notes and analysis, supplementary notes, and a additional reading list.

All in all, The Poems: Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece, the Phoenix and the Turtle, the Passionate Pilgrim, a Lover's Complaint is a nice collection of Shakespearean poems attributed to him with a good analysis within.

[Akhilesh Sharma]

"There are certain signs to know,
Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe."

[Марија Андреева]

Great work! I loved the poems in this collection and I enjoyed them very much, especially Venus and Adonis!

[Bernie Gourley]

While William Shakespeare is overwhelmingly known as a playwright who also wrote a collection of sonnets, back in his day some of his poetic stories were quite well-received. This volume collects the five narrative poems that Shakespeare is believed to have authored (or partially authored.)

-“Venus and Adonis”: This is one of the two long-form narrative poems of Shakespeare. It tells the tale of the goddess Venus’s obsession with Adonis, her many attempts to woo the hunky lad, and the tragedy that befalls him, breaking her heart. It’s written in six-line stanzas of iambic pentameter with a quatrain of alternating line rhymes and an end couplet of a third rhyme.

-“The Rape of Lucrece”: This is the other long narrative poem of Shakespeare. Lucrece’s husband, Collatine, is off on campaign and brags about how perfect is his wife, Lucrece. The “gentleman” he is telling this to is Tarquin, and the high-praise of Lucrece sets the seed of obsession in Tarquin’s mind. When he then finds himself in Collatine’s neighborhood (with Collatine still off to war,) he pays Lucrece a visit and is invited to stay over. That night he breaks into her bedchambers and – after threatening to kill her and a random male servant whose corpse he’ll shove into bed with her – Tarquin rapes her. After mulling over her options, Lucrece calls for Collatine’s return and after getting the promise of Collantine and his fellow soldiers to have revenge for her, she tells them who raped her immediately before ending her own life by dagger.

It’s written in the rhyme royal seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter made famous by Chaucer.

-“The Phoenix and the Turtle”: This is a very different poem from the others. In terms of format, it abandons iambic pentameter in favor of shorter, punchier lines. Stylistically, it’s a bit more obscure and allegorical than most Shakespearean poetry.

The gist of the tale is the description of a funeral for the perfect couple. [I guess that an important thing to know is that “Turtle” is used as short for turtledove, and so it’s not a tale of bestial interspecies lovin’.] Besides the lines being shorter, the entire poem is short and sweet, ending with a philosophical lament about truth and beauty.

-“The Passionate Pilgrim”: While we’re back to iambic pentameter (and mostly sonnets) this work is a departure other ways. First, rather than being a narrative poem proper, this is really a love poetry collection. Second, while the collection consists of twenty poems, Shakespeare is believed to have only written five of them (I, II, III, V, and XVI.) Of those, the first four are sonnets, and the last is an eighteen-line poem. Third, this is not new or exclusive material. The first two sonnets came to be included in the 154-sonnet collection of Shakespeare (138 and 144,) and the other verse is from “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

-“A Lover’s Complaint”: The weeping of a maiden attracts the attention of a passerby, who she tells her tale of woe, having been wooed by a young man who got his milk and high-tailed it before he was forced to buy the cow. Besides being a woman’s tale of woe, it also shares with “The Rape of Lucrece” the fact that it is written in rhyme royal. It’s much shorter than “The Rape of Lucrece.”

I would highly recommend poetry readers dig into these lesser know Shakespearean works.

[Stuart Aken]

I always feel nervous commenting on the works of the Bard. After all, as England’s foremost dramatist, he has one hell of a reputation. Part of my anxiety stems from simple ignorance: a lack of knowledge of the times in which he wrote, and large holes in my understanding of the vocabulary he used. It is easy to misunderstand or misinterpret his work.
All the same, as a modern reader of a classic work, I have a voice and an opinion. I hope readers of my reviews understand that they are personal and only as informed as those of most readers who also write.

So, to The Narrative Poems: this volume contains, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Phoenix and Turtle. I read the Penguin Shakespeare edition, so there are some notes, an introduction and an epilogue to guide readers.

There is no doubt that Shakespeare was a superb poet. But these are works very much of their time, in spite of their reputation as classics. Classics, because they use language in an evocative and engaging way. Of their time, because they are rather more wordy than a modern reader would generally prefer. Although it takes the author several verses to say what modern writers would say in one, the manner of the exposition is so brilliant that wordiness is more easily forgiven. That said, there were short passages I skipped because they seemed superfluous.

Venus and Adonis retells an ancient myth in the typical style of the poet and does so very well, of course. The Rape of Lucrece again tackles an old story, but what is most noticeable about this one is its extremely moral stance. At the time of the Bard, women were routinely ‘owned’ and abused, yet the language of this work expresses such disgust over the actions of the rapist, Tarquin, and such empathy with the victim, Lucrece, that it might have been written by a modern man. The Phoenix and Turtle, however, is all but incomprehensible without a translation or some reference to the original work from which it is undoubtedly derived.

Did I enjoy the read? Yes. Was some of it hard work? Yes. Did it put me off reading more of Shakespeare? No. Scholars and those acquainted with his works, will need no input from me. Those less familiar with the work of the Bard should find this slim volume worth their time. I suggest you have a read.

[Lydia]

To be more definative, this is not a bad selection of poems, but the material is rather harsh, especially for being about love, as two of the poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece deal with passion that is not love though often given that title. This is something that I have always liked about Shakespeare's writting, though he deals with the unsavory side of humanity, when he is writting about lust and passion he doesn't claim it is real love. He shows it for what it is, selfishness. In that way, these poems on love are really good, because every single time the character in the wrong makes a plea for their lust being love, another character will always call them out on the lie with a great reply; one of my favorites being Adonis' below.
"'Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.'"

Content notes: no language issues, save that some words may be un-intelligable to the non-Shakespearian reader (and to avid Shakespeare readers, but by now we know to look them up or figure from context). Sensuality issues are rampant. Venus attempts to rape Adonis, Lucrece is raped under duress and all the other poems hint at sexual relations before marriage. On top of that is the usual Shakespearian double speak where words can be taken at face value or as bawdy undertones. Violence-wise, Adonis dies by a wild boar and Lucrece commits suicide to escape from her shame. Neither of these is graphic in the normal sense, but Shakespeare does love having blood "speak" so it is very prevelant. Other notes, female readers may have issues with imagery of women being the eviler sex as some of the later poems hint, but keep in mind the speaker is supposed to be a dissatisfied lover and is rather annoyed with his lady.

On a personal note, having completed these poems, I have now read all Shakespeare atributed materials that can be found by the general public! Yes, I do feel rather accomplished!

[Richard]

The diversity of poems in this collection, some of them rather more alien to the modern reader than Shakespeare's plays or sonnets, makes rating this book difficult. The Passionate Pilgrim is a very uneven miscellany, only some of the contents of which are by Shakespeare. The metaphysical allegory of The Phoenix and the Turtle is intriguing, but difficult to penetrate, as is the narrative of A Lover's Complaint; the editor's suggestion that this poem may be unfinished seems very plausible. John Roe's comprehensive and academic introduction tackles many of the complexities, but does not really succeed in making the poems themselves more accessible, and I found that although this edition provides copious notes, it fails to gloss several lines that I would like to have had explained.

The two longer and better-known narrative poems are much more appealing than the lesser works. Although the close of its narrative seems rather perfunctory, The Rape of Lucrece - which, as Jonathan Bate points out in Shakespeare and Ovid, is dominated by a tragic heroine who "gets to speak more lines than any other female persona in any other individual work of Shakespeare" - contains some stunning moments, especially in Lucrece's railing against Time, Night, and Opportunity, and in the description of the destruction of Troy. Some knowledge of the Elizabethan formal rhetoric of pathos is probably necessary for a full appreciation of the poem, and something similar could be said for Venus and Adonis, but its sensual exuberance and lively mix of comedy and tragedy make this poem hard to resist. Watching the beautiful but bashful and pouting Adonis do his best to fight off the arguments and less-subtle physical advances of the smitten, love-sick Venus, whose face "doth reek and smoke" with the uncontrollable fury of lust, is very amusing, but also asks a question: Where would our sympathies lie should the female and male roles of seducer and object of love/lust be reversed, as indeed they usually are in more familiar narrative and lyrical convention?

[Hallie Day]

Venus and Adonis (1593) by William Shakespeare

Easily my favourite of the five. A great introduction to long-form poetry for me and it's a shame that none of the others even began to match it. Intriguing back-and-forth between the characters, a fun little setting, and loads of great imagery and wordplay. All-in-all fab stuff.

Lucrece (1594) by William Shakespeare

While reading it I found it to be very arduous, but after reading the Introduction for it and the comparisons with Venus and Adonis I've gained a more heightened appreciation for what it's doing. I may re-read it sometime in the future, or perhaps listen to an audiobook version of it.

The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601) by William Shakespeare

A fair bit too allegorical for my taste but maybe it'll grow on me. I like the ideas in it though.

The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) by William Shakespeare

Feels like a rather hodge-podge anthology without a lot of structure. I like the Venus and Adonis ones and a couple others here and there, but for the most part it doesn't do a lot for me. Being one of the two minor and "dubious" poems in the collection, I don't feel like I'm missing out on a lot by not really feeling this one. Hopefully The Sonnets are a great improvement on something with this kind of format.

A Lover's Complaint (1609) by William Shakespeare

Better for me than most, and would also probably warrant a re-read, but again it just doesn't really do a lot for me.

[Glenn]

What an appropriate coincidence! I finished this slim volume of poems on the anniversary of Shakespeare's death. April 23, 1616. 406 years, and the work is still readable and enjoyable!

The 17th Century's admiration of the classics shines through here. Venus and Adonis is, of course, based on an old legend, recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Lucrece (also known as The Rape of Lucrece) is sourced in Livy's History of Rome from the Foundation of the City. Did Shakespeare read Ovid and Livy in the Latin, or were they available in translation at the time? These two long poems are the meat of this book, and are solid members of the canons of classic literature.

The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, and A Lover's Complaint are lesser works, but they contain many interesting metaphors, similes, and turns of phrase. The Passionate Pilgrim is a collection of poems many of them sonnet length, and some of them very good.

Still, it blows my mind that a person would take an old story of outrage from Livy's History, and turn it into a 72-page-long poem, in a strict, consistent meter.

Enjoy!

[Stuart Dean]

Two narrative poems. "Venus and Adonis" follows the goddess of love as she seduces an underage boy who just wants to go hunting with his pals. She plies him with her feminine wiles, offers great pleasures, and everything that comes with a night of passion with a goddess. He wants to go hunting. She spends twenty pages seducing him, and then things go wrong.

"The Rape of Lucrece" is a historical poem. The prince of Rome hears that Lucrece is the most lovely and virtuous women in all of Italy, and he decides he must have her. He spends twenty pages arguing with himself over what he is about to do. This reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe, as a disturbed man fights with his inner demons. Afterward, Lucrece spends twenty pages cursing him and the world in general, and decides that there is only one answer to regain her honor.

There are also some other poems at the end, and since I have no ear for poetry I cannot speak to them. "The Rape of Lucrece" is very good, featuring two tortured souls reconciling their predicaments.

[Pádraic]

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.

[Janice]

I love Shakespeare's plays. However, I never read his poetry. And yes, this is the last book I read for my class. The particular poem of "Venus and Adonis" portrays many Petrarchan symbols and reversals. With all the classical texts I have been reading, I can now see who influenced Shakespeare. Also, I now find it funny when i see Shakespeare plays done where the genders of the characters are switched. For example, Julius Caesar being played by a woman. It's not that I find it funny that a woman is playing Caesar, but that this has already been done several years ago. In fact, in "Venus and Adonis", Venus is portrayed as the masculine female hunting after the feminine, male beloved. With this, I found that i was quite fond of Shakespeare's poems almost as much as his plays.

[amax]

"Venus and Adonis"
In which Venus is a thirsty cougar who pursues a young boy. Adonis would rather die than be anywhere near her, so he runs off in the dead of night on a hunt, and ends up getting killed by a boar.

"The Rape of Lucrece"
In which Tarquin spends half the poem rationalizing his decision to rape his friend's wife, and Lucrece spends the other half plotting her own death and linking her misery to the fall of Troy.

"The Phoenix and the Turtle"
In which two birds, a phoenix and a turtle (dove), fall in love and die.

"The Passionate Pilgrim"
In which Shakespeare rewrites a few sonnets, summarizes "Venus and Adonis," and talks about an English lady.

"A Lover's Complaint"
In which a lover complains a lot, using 'O's to convey his feelings.

[Berrak]

Uzun şiirlere hayran kaldim diyebilirim ama kısmen karışık bi kitap

[Niky]

Read 'The Phoenix and the Turtle' on 8-08-2010
I can say that it's about a phoenix and a turtle dove and about love. I'm not so good in interpret poems; I find it hard enough in Dutch so English is obviously even harder for me. So I don't know my opion about this poems. I'll probably re-read it.

[raShit]

"İç çekişlerim uçup gitti, gözyaşlarım eridi,
Gözlerim yangına döndü, kalbim ağır kurşun sanki.
Kurşun gibi ağır kalbim eriyor göz yangınımda,
Sıcak arzumdan damlayarak son bulacak canım da."