Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Sonnet 18 opens with what sounds like a compliment and turns out to be an argument — one of the most quietly radical arguments in the English language.
Read the Analysis ›“Nothing will come of nothing.”
King Lear
Sonnet 129: The Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
Sonnet 129 is the most violent poem in the sequence — a controlled explosion of self-disgust at the…
Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
Sonnet 30 turns the act of remembering into a form of grief, only to find that the thought…
Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
Sonnet 4 is not a poem about beauty — it is a legal brief against a man who…
Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass, and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
Sonnet 3 is the first poem in the sequence to look backward — and that change of direction…
Sonnet 58: That God Forbid, That Made Me First Your Slave
Sonnet 58 is a performance of patience — and the couplet is where the performance breaks.
Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse So Barren of New Pride
Read Sonnet 76 with the full poem and analysis exploring Shakespeare’s reflection on poetic style, originality, and constant…