Shakespeare Sonnets: A Modern Love Story
Theater
5 Famous Shakespeare Sonnets
By: Anne Robinson
Learn about five of Shakespeare’s most famous Sonnets.
Shakespeare’s sonnets remain some of the most enduring and intimate works in English literature. Here are some of the most famous from his vast collection.
Shakespeare’s sonnets are a collection of 154 poems written by William Shakespeare, first published in 1609. They are among the most famous and influential poems in English literature.
Through their structured form and rich imagery, they explore timeless themes such as love, beauty, time, and mortality. As well as reflecting on the simple happiness that love can bring, they speak, often in raw fashion, of jealousy, fear, infidelity, and love triangles.
What is a sonnet?
A sonnet is a form of verse with these main characteristics:
- One stanza of 14 lines
- Usually written in iambic pentameter
- A rhyming scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
- The final rhyming couplet often sums up or gives a surprising twist
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, sonnets were hugely popular in England. Influential poets like Petrarch (Italy) and Sir Philip Sidney (England) had already made the form fashionable.
Sonnets gave Shakespeare a chance to play with language, metaphor, and structure in a compact form. It also allowed him to explore themes more personally and philosophically than in his plays.
Sonnet 18 – “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
This sonnet is possibly the most famous sonnet of all, and certainly one that has entered deeply into the consciousness of our culture. The poem begins with a rhetorical question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”. He sets up a comparison between the beloved and a summer day, but immediately argues his beloved is better.
While the person can’t be identified for certain, scholars believe Sonnet 18 is addressed to a beloved young man, either real or symbolic, whom Shakespeare admired deeply. Many of Shakespeare’s early sonnets (1-126) are generally addressed to the “Fair Youth,” allegedly a beautiful, noble young man.
Sonnet 60- “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”
Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
This is the opening line of Sonnet 60 – a deeply philosophical and moving reflection on time, mortality, and the relentless passage of life. Shakespeare compares the passage of time to waves crashing endlessly against the shore, an unstoppable flow toward the end.
Sonnet 104 – “To me, fair friend, you never can be old”
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
The speaker tells a beloved friend: “You never seem to grow old to me,” suggesting that beauty remains unchanged. But there’s a twist: the speaker suspects that time is stealing beauty slowly, like the subtle motion of a clock hand, and he just can’t perceive it. Shakespeare ends with a powerful image: he’s writing this poem to warn the future that true beauty has already passed, even if unnoticed.
Sonnet 116 – “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and widely quoted love sonnets. It’s a profound meditation on the nature of true love. Shakespeare begins: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments,” a direct echo of the wedding ceremony. He’s saying, true love has no obstacles; it is constant and unwavering. “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds…”- meaning true love doesn’t fade or bend when circumstances shift. Real love isn’t destroyed by age or physical decay (“Love’s not time’s fool…”). Though beauty fades (e.g., “rosy lips and cheeks”), love remains strong.
Sonnet 130 – “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
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The last 28 of Shakespeare’s poems are addressed to a mistress, the so-called “Dark Lady”, who causes both desire and loathing in the speaker. Sonnet 130 is a brilliant, witty, and subversive take on the traditional love sonnet. Instead of comparing his mistress to goddesses, suns, or roses, he points out she’s a real, imperfect woman. Despite all her “flaws,” the speaker still loves her deeply and sincerely. This is refreshing honesty in a genre full of over-the-top flattery. It’s playful, but also makes a serious point about genuine affection and true connection.
In summary
Few collections of poems, indeed, few literary works in general, intrigue, challenge, tantalize, and reward as do Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Whether expressing deep affection, confronting the ravages of age, or defying time through the power of verse, the sonnets reveal a personal side of Shakespeare that complements his dramatic works. Over four centuries later, these 14-line poems continue to resonate, reminding us that while times change, human feelings really don’t, and that’s what keeps readers coming back.
Want more Sonnets? Watch Shakespeare’s complete Sonnets performed by acting legends like Sir Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, Simon Callow, Fiona Shaw, Simon Russell Beale, Kim Cattrall, Dominic West, and Stephen Fry, in The Sonnets by William Shakespeare on Marquee TV. Or follow along as five unique stories of love unfold on screen, scripted entirely by Shakespeare’s sonnets in Shakespeare Sonnets: A Modern Love Story.
Related Topics
Beginner's Guide
Shakespeare