The most famous collection of love poems in the English language, Shakespeare's Sonnets have spoken to generations of readers who have turned to them again and again when searching for supreme expressions of love. Covering a whole range of emotions from joy to anguish, these sonnets reveal the beauty, power, inventiveness, and originality of Shakespeare's verse.

The collection depicts in beautiful, poignant, and intriguing language the poet's celebration of his passionate friendship with a young man, his grief over a friend's seduction by his own mistress, his chagrin at the friend's relationship with a rival poet, and, in the final group of poems, his own humiliating infatuation with "a woman colored ill"--the Dark Lady who has tempted his "better angel" from him.

Lyrically beautiful and psychologically fascinating, the sonnets both appeal as individual poems, and as an intricately related sequence. This volume presents all the sonnets in a freshly edited text and includes a few little-known alternative versions.

"An impressive work which casts fresh light on many major and minor matters through applying a new and consistent perspective to a difficult area. It breaks much new ground, and does so in an agreeable style."--John Barton, Oriel College, Oxford

"This is an excellent piece of work, very well controlled in overall design, and very well prepared in detail. It both takes into account other work in the field and makes an original contribution. The work will be of considerable interest for Christian and Jewish studies."--Fergus Millar, Brasenose

College, Oxford

"Significant and readable....The study should be consulted by all those persons interested in the variety of projects which fall somewhere under the rubric of social scientific investigations of the relevant time period."--IOUDAIOS Review

"Thorough and clearly organized work, Gray has done a service to scholarship."--Journal of Theological Studies

"It seems to me that Professor Gray had indeed brought a fresh approach to bear on the religious and political turmoil of the late Second Temple period; and that she has uncovered the need for further research into the attitude of popular circles towards the varieties of prophecy. On both counts

this book is to be warmly welcomed."--Le'ela

The sonnets in this collection describe Shakespeare's passionate friendship with a young man, his friend's seduction by the poet's own mistress, his friend's relationship with a rival poet and most famously, his humiliated infatuation with the Dark Lady.

Shakespeare's Sonnets is the most famous collection of love poems in the English language. Beautiful, poignant, and intriguing, they describe the poet's passionate friendship with a young man, his friend's seduction by the poet's own mistress, his friend's relationship with a rival poet, and most famously, Shakespeare's humiliated infatuation with the Dark Lady, "a woman colored ill, " who, far from being the marble-hearted femme fatale of fashionable sonnet sequences, is "the bay where all men ride." These 154 poems have aroused speculation ever since they were written: who are the poet's handsome friend, his rival, and the Dark Lady? Who is the mysterious Mr. W. H., "the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets, " to whom the publisher dedicated them? Despite much labored study on the subject, the poems have kept their secrets. The poems are presented here, with an informative introduction and in a freshly edited text along with A Lover's Complaint and little-known alternative versions of four of the sonnets.

Stanley Wells is General Editor of the Oxford Shakspeare and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham.

Introduction, Stanley Wells

Shakespeare's Sonnets

A Lover's Complaint

Alternative Versions of Sonnets 2, 106, 138, and 144

Textual Notes

Index of First Lines of the Sonnets