Shakespeare’s Sonnets: where to start? Begin with the five most famous, Sonnets 18, 116, 130, 29 and 73, then follow the story groups that run through the sequence: the early sonnets urging a young man to marry, the sonnets about time and poetry, and the darker sonnets about the woman readers call the Dark Lady. Poetry Catalog has all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and this guide gives you a path through them.
Short Answer
Read the five famous sonnets first. Then read Sonnets 1, 12 and 15 to see how the sequence opens, Sonnets 55, 60 and 65 for time and poetry, and Sonnets 129, 138, 144 and 147 for the Dark Lady group.
What Are Shakespeare’s Sonnets?
The 154 sonnets were first printed together in 1609 by the publisher Thomas Thorpe, under the title Shake-speares Sonnets. Nobody knows exactly when Shakespeare wrote them, and the book’s dedication to a mysterious Mr. W. H. has never been explained.
Every sonnet but a few follows the same pattern: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter in three quatrains and a closing couplet, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The couplet often sums up the poem or twists it.
Readers traditionally divide the sequence into groups. Sonnets 1–126 are usually read as addressed to a young man, often called the Fair Youth. Within that group, Sonnets 1–17 urge him to marry and have children. Sonnets 127–152 concern a woman with dark hair and eyes, the Dark Lady. The last two, 153 and 154, are short poems about Cupid.
Step 1: The Famous Five
- Sonnet 18. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The beloved is lovelier than summer, and the poem will make that beauty last forever.
- Sonnet 116. True love “is an ever-fixed mark” that never changes. The sonnet most often read at weddings.
- Sonnet 130. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” A funny, affectionate parody of over-the-top love poetry.
- Sonnet 29. A man full of envy and self-pity is lifted by the thought of love, rising “Like to the lark at break of day.”
- Sonnet 73. Autumn, twilight and a dying fire: three images of old age, and a plea to love while there is time.
Step 2: How the Sequence Opens
- Sonnet 1. The first of the marriage sonnets: beautiful people should have children so their beauty survives.
- Sonnet 12. Counting the clock and watching everything decay, the speaker argues that only children can defy time.
- Sonnet 15. The turn from children to poetry: the speaker promises to renew the young man in verse.
Step 3: Time and the Power of Poetry
- Sonnet 55. Poetry will outlast marble statues and golden monuments.
- Sonnet 60. Minutes hurry like waves toward the shore, and only verse resists time’s destruction.
- Sonnet 65. If even brass and stone decay, how can beauty survive? Only through ink.
Step 4: The Dark Lady
- Sonnet 129. A furious sonnet about lust and the shame that follows it.
- Sonnet 138. Two lovers who knowingly lie to each other, and accept the lies.
- Sonnet 144. The speaker’s two loves, the young man and the woman, pictured as a good and a bad angel.
- Sonnet 147. Love as a fever that feeds the disease it causes.
How to Read a Shakespeare Sonnet
Find the argument. Most sonnets make a case. Ask what the speaker is trying to prove or persuade someone to do.
Watch the quatrains. Each quatrain often develops one image or step in the argument. Sonnet 73 is a clear example: one image per quatrain.
Look for the turn. Many sonnets change direction at line 9, often with “But” or “Yet,” and again in the couplet.
Read the couplet last and slowly. It is where Shakespeare lands the poem, sometimes neatly, sometimes with a twist that changes everything before it.
FAQ
Which Shakespeare sonnet should I read first?
Sonnet 18. It is the most famous and shows the basic form and his favorite theme: beauty defeating time through poetry.
How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?
154, first printed together in 1609.
Who are the sonnets addressed to?
Most are read as addressed to a young man (1–126) or to a woman known as the Dark Lady (127–152). Neither is named.
Are Shakespeare’s sonnets autobiographical?
Nobody knows. Some readers look for Shakespeare’s own life and loves in them, while others treat the speaker as a character he invented. No surviving document confirms who the young man or the Dark Lady were, so it is safest to read the poems on their own terms.
What is a Shakespearean sonnet?
Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter: three quatrains and a couplet rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.