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The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare (1594)
The Rape of Lucrece is another long narrative poem by Shakespeare. It was published in 1594, just one year after Venus and Adonis, and like that poem, it was also popular during Shakespeare’s lifetime. At 1,855 lines, it is longer than the earlier poem by about one-third, and it employs seven-line rather than six-line stanzas. Also, its subject is more serious. If Venus in the earlier poem is a lustful goddess, Lucrece is a heroine for her honor and chastity. She is a married woman who is raped by Tarquin, a Roman soldier. She tells her husband the name of the man who committed the crime and then dies by suicide. As a result, an angry populace banishes Tarquin and his family. The poem is based on a story in Roman history which may or may not have historical truth.
William Shakespeare’s Sonnets by William Shakespeare (1609)
This website, maintained by the Folger Shakespeare Library, contains all of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, with short prose synopses of each one. Most interesting for readers of Venus and Adonis are perhaps Sonnets 1-17, which urge the youth to which the poems are addressed to marry and have children, so that his beauty can be preserved for future generations.
By William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
Coriolanus
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Cymbeline
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
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Henry IV, Part 1
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Henry IV, Part 2
William Shakespeare
Henry V
William Shakespeare
Henry VIII
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Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 3
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
King John
William Shakespeare
King Lear
William Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare
Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Measure For Measure
William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare