Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets are as thrilling and persuasive today as they were when they were first published: perhaps no collection of verses before or since has so captured the imagination of lovers and readers as these.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets are considered a continuation of the sonnet tradition that swept through the Renaissance, from Petrarch in 14th-century Italy and was finally introduced in 16th-century England by Thomas Wyatt. With few exceptions, they observe the stylistic form of the English sonnet: the rhyme scheme, the 14 lines, and the meter. But Shakespeare’s sonnets also introduce such significant departures of content that they seem to be rebelling against well-worn 200 year-old traditions.
Shakespeare explores themes such as lust, homoeroticism, misogyny, infidelity, and acrimony in ways that may challenge, but which also open new terrain for the sonnet form.