Shakespeare is best known to the world as a playwright. However, Shakespeare’s reputation as a writer was established in society through his poems first. During the Elizabethan times, it was hardly profitable to write poems. However, as it is today, attempting poetry was fashionable and poetry helped the author to enhance his social status. For Shakespeare, poetry was not only something he greatly enjoyed, but also a platform to express his most personal and intimate thoughts and desires.
There was an interim during Shakespeare’s busy life of acting and writing plays. There was an attack of a plague in England between 1593 and 1594; and as a result, theatres had to be closed down for controlling the spread of the disease. It was during this period, Shakespeare turned to writing poems. The first of his long poems was ‘Venus and Adonis’, written in 1593 and ‘The Rape of Lucrece’, written in the next year. Both poems deal with passion and violence. ‘A Lover’s Complaint’, ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ and ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’ are some of his other narrative poems.
However, Shakespeare’s reputation as a poet lies in his sonnets. They were published in 1609. There are 154 sonnets in total. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; whereas the last 28 are addressed to a young woman. While Shakespeare’s plays made him a popular dramatist, his poems cemented his place in the literary world.
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