1564–1616English Renaissance16th century
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Did you know?
Shakespeare is credited with inventing over 1,700 words still used in English today — including 'bedroom', 'lonely', 'generous', and 'zany'.
He part-owned the Globe Theatre in London, built in 1599, which could hold an audience of up to 3,000 people.
His entire surviving output includes 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and several longer poems — yet no manuscripts in his own handwriting have survived.
He retired to his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon around 1613 and famously left his wife his 'second-best bed' in his will.
Poems
150 poems- A Lover's Complaint331 lines
- Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind20 lines
- Orpheus with his Lute Made Trees12 lines
- Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase14 lines
- Sonnet 10: For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any14 lines
- Sonnet 100: Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long14 lines
- Sonnet 101: O truant Muse what shall be thy amends14 lines
- Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming14 lines
- Sonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth14 lines
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old14 lines
- Sonnet 105: Let not my love be call'd idolatry14 lines
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time14 lines
- Sonnet 107: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul14 lines
- Sonnet 108: What's in the brain, that ink may character14 lines
- Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart14 lines
- Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st14 lines
- Sonnet 110: Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there14 lines
- Sonnet 111: O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide14 lines
- Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth the impression fill14 lines
- Sonnet 113: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind14 lines
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you14 lines
- Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie14 lines
- Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds14 lines
- Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all14 lines
- Sonnet 118: Like as, to make our appetite more keen14 lines
- Sonnet 119: What potions have I drunk of Siren tears14 lines
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time14 lines
- Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now14 lines
- Sonnet 121: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd14 lines
- Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain14 lines
- Sonnet 123: No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change14 lines
- Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state14 lines
- Sonnet 125: Were't aught to me I bore the canopy14 lines
- Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power12 lines
- Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair14 lines
- Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st14 lines
- Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame14 lines
- Sonnet 13: O! that you were your self; but, love you are14 lines
- Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun14 lines
- Sonnet 131: Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art14 lines
- Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me14 lines
- Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan14 lines
- Sonnet 134: So, now I have confess'd that he is thine14 lines
- Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'14 lines
- Sonnet 136: If thy soul check thee that I come so near14 lines
- Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes14 lines
- Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth14 lines
- Sonnet 139: O! call not me to justify the wrong14 lines
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck14 lines
- Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press14 lines
- Sonnet 141: In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes14 lines
- Sonnet 142: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate14 lines
- Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows14 lines
- Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way14 lines
- Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come14 lines
- Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?14 lines
- Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws14 lines
- Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow14 lines
- Sonnet 20: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted14 lines
- Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that Muse14 lines
- Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old14 lines
- Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage14 lines
- Sonnet 24: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd14 lines
- Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars14 lines
- Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage14 lines
- Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed14 lines
- Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight14 lines
- Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes14 lines
- Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest14 lines
- Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought14 lines
- Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts14 lines
- Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day14 lines
- Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen14 lines
- Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day14 lines
- Sonnet 35: No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done14 lines
- Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain14 lines
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight14 lines
- Sonnet 38: How can my muse want subject to invent14 lines
- Sonnet 39: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing14 lines
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend14 lines
- Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all14 lines
- Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits14 lines
- Sonnet 42: That thou hast her it is not all my grief14 lines
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see14 lines
- Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought14 lines
- Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air, and purging fire14 lines
- Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war14 lines
- Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took14 lines
- Sonnet 48: How careful was I when I took my way14 lines
- Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come14 lines
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame14 lines
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way14 lines
- Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence14 lines
- Sonnet 52: So am I as the rich, whose blessed key14 lines
- Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made14 lines
- Sonnet 54: O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem14 lines
- Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments14 lines
- Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said14 lines
- Sonnet 57: Being your slave what should I do but tend14 lines
- Sonnet 58: That god forbid, that made me first your slave14 lines
- Sonnet 59: If there be nothing new, but that which is14 lines
- Sonnet 6: Then let not winter's ragged hand deface14 lines
- Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore14 lines
- Sonnet 61: Is it thy will, thy image should keep open14 lines
- Sonnet 62: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye14 lines
- Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be as I am now14 lines
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd14 lines
- Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea14 lines
- Sonnet 66: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry14 lines
- Sonnet 67: Ah! wherefore with infection should he live14 lines
- Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn14 lines
- Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view14 lines
- Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light14 lines
- Sonnet 70: That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect14 lines
- Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead14 lines
- Sonnet 72: O! lest the world should task you to recite14 lines
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold14 lines
- Sonnet 74: But be contented: when that fell arrest14 lines
- Sonnet 75: So are you to my thoughts as food to life14 lines
- Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride14 lines
- Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear14 lines
- Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse14 lines
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid14 lines
- Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?14 lines
- Sonnet 80: O! how I faint when I of you do write14 lines
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make14 lines
- Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse14 lines
- Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need14 lines
- Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more14 lines
- Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still14 lines
- Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse14 lines
- Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing14 lines
- Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light14 lines
- Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault14 lines
- Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye14 lines
- Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now14 lines
- Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill14 lines
- Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thyself away14 lines
- Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true14 lines
- Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt, and will do none14 lines
- Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame14 lines
- Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness14 lines
- Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been14 lines
- Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring14 lines
- Sonnet 99: The forward violet thus did I chide15 lines
- Spring18 lines
- Spring and Winter i18 lines
- Spring and Winter ii18 lines
- Under the Greenwood Tree16 lines
- Winter18 lines