May 1, 2023
For the twelfth season of the Well-Read Poem, we are reading four poems by William Shakespeare, whose genius as a lyric poet is best appreciated in his collection of 154 sonnets. Shakespeare is of course the supreme dramatic poet of the English language; yet if only his sonnets and shorter poems had survived out of his great body of work, it is not too much to say that he may still have enjoyed a certain literary immortality, albeit of a different sort. In addition to four sonnets by Shakespeare, we will be taking a look at two sonnets by fellow Elizabethan poets, to give a sense of the popularity of this verse form in Shakespeare's day.
Today's poem is Sonnet 138, "When my love swears that she is made of truth" by William Shakespeare. Poem begins at timestamp 6:55.
Sonnet 138
by William Shakespeare