8-5Poetry

//Answer prepared by Chloe K.//

William Shakespeare during his lifetime wasn’t highly regarded for his poetry. He was known for his intense and captivating plays. Even so, his poem, “Venus and Adonis” was what triggered an increase in his reputation as a great writer of his time. This was his most popular and admired poem of Shakespeare’s at the time. Sonnets originated in Italy but they became popular in England at the time that Shakespeare was at his peak in writing poetry. Main subjects of English sonnets were love, beauty, and faith. “Venus and Adonis” was quite lengthy although it was printed the most out of all his poetry. This poem, in summary was about Venus, the queen of love, and her human lover Adonis. It is based on a classical Greek myth Metamorphosis by Ovid. Shakespeare uses interpretation and expands on the details of this story of two lovers.

Poets of that time were considered with the most authority and nobility. William Shakespeare’s most famous poems, stated in __The Complete Guide to Shakespeare__ by Laurie Rozakis, would be “A Lover’s Complaint”, Pheniox and the Turtle”, The Rape of Lucrece” and of course “Venus and Adonis”. All of these poems are fairly long, some even consisting of 40-45 stanzas. Also stated by Rozakis, Shakespeare’s sonnets are separated into three specific groupings. The first of which is sonnets 1-126, they address and concern a young man, it is debated whether or not it could be semi-autobiographical. The second grouping is sonnets 127-152; they are all based upon a dark lady. The last grouping is two variations of Greek poems. On the website __Shakespeare Resource Center__ under the article “Shakespeare’s Poetry” by J. M Pressley, it says that William’s sonnets consisted of powerful musings of love, beauty, mortality and the effects of time. In Shakespeare’s poetry, he followed the idiomatic rhyme scheme that was similar to Sir Phillip Sydney’s another famous poet. Idioms are special words that can be made up and are only used by that one person. In his poem, “The Rape of Lucrece”, the seven line rhyme is called the “royal rhyme” it displayed the seriousness of the subject. Shakespeare’s poetry was somewhat personal as well as controversial. Also because of this controversy, many of his poems were not published Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets are 2, 18, 29, 55, 109, 116, 126, 130, 133, 137,142, and 147. It is split evenly in half between the first grouping and second. In conclusion Shakespeare was a great writer of his time, and of today in both his plays and poetry.

__ Works Cited __   “William Shakespeare Poems.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 2005. 12 Mar. 2009   < [] >   Shakespeare, William. __Poems of William Shakespeare__. Hoboken. BiblioBytes, 1999.   Rozakis, Laurie. __The Complete Guide to Shakespeare__. New York City: Alpha Books, 1999   Pressley, J. M. “Shakespeare’s Poetry.” __Shakespeare__ __Resource Center__. 18 Feb. 2009. 12 Mrc. 2009 < [] media type="youtube" key="wjxnnv0V77o" height="344" width="425" media type="youtube" key="n-qnY6KIlj4" height="344" width="425"