Sonnets
by William Shakespeare
"Shakespeare's sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years. All 154 poems appeared in a 1609 collection, entitled SHAKE-SPEARE's SONNETS, comprising 152 previously unpublished sonnets and two poems, numbers 138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") and 144 ("Two loves have I, of comfort and despair"), that had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim.
The Sonnets were published under conditions that have become unclear to history. Although the works were written by Shakespeare, it is not known if the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, used an authorized manuscript from him, or an unauthorized copy. Also, there is a mysterious dedication at the beginning of the text wherein a certain "Mr. W.H." is described as "the onlie begetter" of the poems by the publisher Thomas Thorpe, but it is not known who this man was. The dedication refers to the poet as "Ever-Living", a phrase which has helped fuel the Shakespearean authorship debate due to its use as an epithet for the deceased (Shakespeare himself used the phrase in this way in Henry VI, part 1 (IV, iii, 51-2) describing the dead Henry V as "[t]hat ever-living man of memory"). Authorship proponents believe this phrase indicates that the real author of the sonnets was dead by 1609, whereas Shakespeare of Stratford lived until 1616. Adding further to the authorship debate, Shakespeare's name is hyphenated on the title page and on the top of every other page in the book.
The first 17 sonnets are written to a young man, urging him to marry and have children, thereby passing down his beauty to the next generation. These are called the procreation sonnets. Most of them, however, 18-126, are addressed to a young man expressing the poet's love for him. So
Other Titles of William Shakespeare Books
1. Alls Well That Ends Well
2. Antony and Cleopatra
3. As You Like It
4. Comedy of Errors
5. Coriolanus
6. Cymbeline
7. Hamlet
8. Julius Caeser
9. King Henry the Fourth Part I
10. King Henry the Eighth
11. King Henry the Fifth
12. King Henry the Fourth Part II
13. King Henry The Sixth Part I
14. King Henry The Sixth Part II
15. King Henry the Sixth Part III
16. King John
17. King Lear
18. King Richard the Second
19. King Richard the Third
20. Loves Labour Lost
21. Macbeth
22. A Lovers Complaint
23. Measure for Measure
24. Merchant of Venice
25. Merry Wives of Windsor
26. Midsummers' Night Dream
27. Much Ado About Nothing
28. Othello
29. Pericles Prince of Tyre
30. Rape of Lucrece
31. Romeo and Juliet
32. Taming of the Shrew
33. Tempest
34. The Winter's Tale
35. Timon of Athens
36. Titus Andronicus
37. Troilus and Cressida
38. Twelfth Night
39. Two Gentlemen of Verona
40. Two Noble Kinsmen
41. Venus and Adonis
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