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Apart from his plays, Shakespeare also had a multitude of other works, including poems, sonnets, and narrative poems. Shakespeare's first works were two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, which were his earliest successes. These poems were dedicated to his patron, Earl of Southampton. The poem of Venus and Adonis was a retelling of the myth of Venus, who falls for a mortal, who then dies of an attack from a wild boar. This poem was told in a tragic yet also comical light. Following Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucere was Shakespeare's next hit. Based on history rather than myth, it retells the history of the rape of Lucerita, the wife of Collainus, by Tarquinius Sextus. The poem expresses Lucerita’s feelings of shame, which led to her self inflicted stabbing. In contrast to Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucere was told in a much more serious light and also communicated issues such as masculine violence and harmful views on female chastity to the public.
Venus and Adonis (Tiziano Vecellio, 1550's)
The Shakespearean sonnet is a form of the English Sonnet used by Shakespeare. This type of sonnet utilized iambic pentameter. There were 14 lines which had a rhyme scheme, which breaks the poem into 3 quatrains (4 lines each) and a couplet (2 lines). Shakespeare's sonnets mainly focused on themes such as love and life. One of his most famous sonnets is Sonnet 18:
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18 begins with a question one would ask a lover (Shall I compare thee to a summers day?) And continues by stating that the young man addressed in the sonnet surpasses a summers day, stating that he is "more lovely" and "more temperate". Furthermore, lines 3-8 focuses on the changes of weather. Even in Shakespeare's time, weather in England is unpredictable. The speaker is addressing that summer is sometimes too hot (line 5), yet sometimes too windy (line 3). This inconsistent summer weather causes the season to pass quickly (line 4) . The beauty of summer declines as the days get dimmer (lines 6-7) In contrast to the fast-passing season, the speaker says that the young mans beauty will be everlasting (line 9) The young man shall stay fair (line 10) and shall be eternal and escape death (lines 10-12). As long as humanity lives, and as long as the sonnet is in existence, their lover will live on (lines 13-14) This sonnet is a prime example of why Shakespeare's writing is so celebrated. Viewed as timeless and brilliant, his works are still being read, analyzed, and enjoyed to this day.
In total, Shakespeare had 154 sonnets, 126 of which were addressed to a young man, and 28 of which were addressed to/refer to a woman). His sonnets were eventually published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 in a volume titled Shakespeare’s Sonnets. In addition to this volume, Shakespeare's other works were also published in 1623. The First Folio, a book compiling a collection of his works, is one of the main reasons Shakespeare's works had not been lost. The book contained 36 of his works, which were gathered by John Heminges and Henry Condell. Between 720-1000 copies were printed, and only 230 survived to this day.
The First Folio was a great contribution in helping communicating, immortalizing, and spreading Shakespeare's works during their time, and in the future as well. If it had not been for the First Folio, Shakespeare's works would have been forgotten with time.
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