Shakespeare’s Sonnets were written over a period of 20 years from 1592-1612. The first 126 sonnets were published in 1609 as part of the collection titled “Shakespeare’s Sonnets.”
The majority of these are about love and relationships; however, some are about political issues such as war and rebellion. In some cases, Shakespeare uses wordplay that is difficult to understand without knowing the context; this makes reading them frustrating for those who do not already know their meanings.
The sonnets are generally divided into two parts: the early sonnets (1-126) and the middle sonnets (127-154). The early sonnets tend to be shorter than those that follow and are addressed to a young man (“Fair Youth”). They describe the poet’s courtship of his beloved, who appears to be resistant at first but eventually yields. This section also includes several poems about time (Sonnets 15-17), mortality (Sonnets 18-19), and beauty (Sonnets 20-21).
Sonnet 29 is one of the most famous of the sonnets, and is often considered to be one of the most beautiful poems in the English language. It is thought that Shakespeare may have based the character of the young man in his sonnets on a real person, known as the “Fair Youth”.
The speaker uses these images to explain how strong his love for his friend is and how long it will last. By doing this, he hopes that he can convince his friend not to reject him or leave him for someone else when he becomes old and ugly because of time’s passage through life.
