Modern readers of Shakespeare's sonnets may be unjustifiably disturbed by oddities in the poet's rhymes. In sonnet 10, for example, the poet rhymes the word love with prove, and in sonnet 145 he rhymes come with doom. This may seem like laziness to us, but in fact in Shakespeare's time all these words had the same vowel quality, love sounding more like "loove" and come like "coom" (cf. Old English lufian and cuman, respectively).

• Biography of William Shakespeare
• About Shakespeare's Sonnets
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Glossary of Terms
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 1 - "From fairest creatures we desire increase"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 18 - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 20 - "A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 30 - "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 52 - "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 60 - "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 73 - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 87 - "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 94 - "They that have power to hurt and will do none"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 116 - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 126 - "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 129 - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 146 - "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 153 - "Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep"
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