Venus and Adonis
Explore Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis with a clear summary, readable sections, and a modern analysis of its themes of desire and tragedy.
Read the Analysis ›“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Shakespeare Authorship Question
The authorship question is the debate over whether William Shakespeare of Stratford actually wrote the plays attributed to…
Sonnet 5: Those Hours, That with Gentle Work Did Frame
Sonnet 5 is the first poem in the sequence to make time itself the subject rather than the…
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…