Sonnets | Critical Assessment

Both traditional and modern Shakespeare critics are united upon one point in their respective and various appraisals of the sonnets: the quality of the sonnets is highly variable. Among the 154 verse pieces included in the 1609 edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, at least one (Sonnet 145, the only one in the entire collection written in tetrameter) is universally considered to be so poor that its authenticity as the work of the Bard has been repeatedly questioned. Perhaps Shakespeare merely had a bad day on Sonnet 145, or, just as plausibly, published and arranged a dozen odd years...

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