The Sonnets explore many of Shakespeare's most common themes: jealousy, betrayal, melancholy. They ache with unfulfilled longing, and, for many, they are the most complete and moving meditations on love ever written.
The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, a cycle of 154 linked poems first published in 1609, are reproduced in full in this Macmillan Collector’s Library edition. Filled with ideas about love, beauty and mortality, the sonnets are written in the same beautiful and innovative language that we have come to know from Shakespeare's plays. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man known as the 'Fair Youth', while others are directed at a 'Rival Poet', and a 'Dark Lady'.