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Queen Elizabeth I Quote


William Shakespeare

The Sonnets


Shakespeare

TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION
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Shakespeare's Sonnets were first published in 1609. The edition, which may have been printed without Shakespeare's permission, contained 154 sonnets, mostly of fourteen lines, with a abab cdcd efef gg rhyming structure. The volume was dedicated to a "Mr W.H.", who was perhaps Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated his narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape Of Lucrece.

The sonnets cover a range of subjects, from love and friendship to death and immortality. They are perhaps the greatest collection of poems ever written, unparalleled in their beauty and sophistication.

Here you can read some of Shakespeare's most popular sonnets:


SONNET 1 - From fairest creatures we desire increase

SONNET 18 - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

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 73 - That time of year thou mayst in me behold

SONNET 104 - To me, fair friend, you never can be old

SONNET 116 - Let me not to the marriage of true minds

SONNET 130 - My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

SONNET 138 - When my love swears that she is made of truth






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