The Bard, William Shakespeare, is the supreme talent of playwriting and perhaps also of those 14 lines of verse we call the Sonnet.
The Elizabethan Sonnet Cycle was a popular form for poets in the 16th Century with masterful works by many including Sir Phillip Sidney Edmund Spenser and Michael Drayton. Many others wrote sonnets interspersed amongst their other works such as John Donne and even Queen Elizabeth herself.
But ranking above all others is William Shakespeare. Some of his sonnets are known in part or whole by all of us such as Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds. Sonnet 97 `How long has my absence been' and Sonnet 18 `Shall I compare thee to a Summers day'. Many of the others are as equal in insight, magnificence, tender expressions, sweeping statements and sheer brilliance.
Whilst in total they number 154 there is little other poetry of Shakespeare's to compare them to unless of course the majesty of his plays is also thought of as poetry.
It matters not. Instead let us feast on these sumptuous readings as we journey together through one of the greatest experiences the English language and its son William Shakespeare have ever created.
