In general, Shakespeare's poems, of course, cannot be compared with his brilliant dramas. But taken by themselves, they bear the imprint of extraordinary talent, and if they had not been drowned in the glory of Shakespeare the playwright, they could well have brought and indeed brought great fame to the author: we know that the scientist Meares saw in Shakespeare the poet a second Ovid. But, in addition, there are a number of reviews from other contemporaries who speak of the “new Catullus” with the greatest delight.

Poems

The poem “Venus and Adonis” was published in 1593, when Shakespeare was already known as a playwright, but the author himself calls it his literary firstborn, and therefore it is very possible that it was either conceived or even partly written in Stretford. There is also an assumption that Shakespeare believed the poem (as opposed to plays for the public theater) a genre worthy of the attention of a noble patron and a work of high art[20]. Echoes of the homeland clearly make themselves felt. The local Middle English flavor is vividly felt in the landscape; there is nothing southern in it, as required by the plot; before the spiritual gaze of the poet, undoubtedly, there were native pictures of the peaceful fields of Warwickshire with their soft tones and calm beauty. One can also feel in the poem an excellent connoisseur of horses and an excellent hunter. The plot is largely taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses; in addition, much is borrowed from Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis. The poem was developed with all the unceremoniousness of the Renaissance, but still without any frivolity. And this was mainly due to the talent of the young author, in addition to the fact that the poem written in sonorous and picturesque verse. If Venus’s efforts to kindle desires in Adonis amaze the later reader with their frankness, then at the same time they do not give the impression of something cynical and not worthy of artistic description. Before us is passion, real, frantic, clouding the mind and therefore poetically legitimate, like everything that is bright and strong. Much more mannered is the second poem - “Lucretia”, published the next year (1594) and dedicated, like the first, to the Earl of Southampton. In the new poem, not only is there nothing unbridled, but, on the contrary, everything, like in the ancient legend, revolves around the most refined understanding of a completely conventional concept of female honor. Insulted by Sextus Tarquinius, Lucretia does not consider it possible to live after the theft of her marital honor and in the longest monologues expresses his feelings. Brilliant, but rather strained metaphors, allegories and antitheses deprive these monologues of real feelings and give the entire poem a rhetorical quality. However, this kind of pomp when writing poetry was very popular with the public, and “Lucretia” was as successful as “Venus and Adonis.” Booksellers, who alone benefited from literary success at that time, since literary property for authors did not then exist, published edition after edition. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, “Venus and Adonis” went through 7 editions, “Lucretia” - 5. Two more small, weak, mannered works are attributed to Shakespeare, one of which, “A Lover’s Complaint,” may have been written by Shakespeare in his youth. The poem "The Passionate Pilgrim" was published in 1599, when Shakespeare was already famous. Its authorship is questioned: it is possible that thirteen of the nineteen poems were not written by Shakespeare. In 1601, Chester's collection Jove's Martyr of Rosalind published Shakespeare's faint allegorical poem "The Phoenix and the Dove."