27 pages • 54 minutes read
Venus and Adonis
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
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.
Further Literary Resources
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. This is the same argument that Venus uses to Adonis in Lines 163-74: “By law of nature thou art bound to breed” (Line 171). Also of interest is Sonnet 129, which begins, “Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action,” which will remind readers of Adonis’s tirade against lust in Lines 793-802.
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (performed around 1607, published 1623)
Shakespeare’s Venus does not closely resemble any character in his plays, but Cleopatra does have the same devotion to erotic love and to the lover of her choice, in this case the Roman general Antony. Antony of course bears no resemblance to the bashful Adonis. He is a seasoned warrior and just as besotted with Cleopatra as she is with him. Both play and poem, however, result in the death of the male character, and Cleopatra laments and mourns for the dead Antony, just as Venus mourns Adonis.
Venus and Adonis: Critical Essays edited by Philip C. Kolin (2015)
This is the only book that consists solely of essays on Venus and Adonis. It contains 19 reprinted essays and seven original ones. The 65-page introduction surveys the history of criticism about the poem. The essays that follow cover such topics as staged versions of the poem, female readership, mythology, and art history. Also included is a bibliography of scholarship and reviews.
“Venus and Adonis” by Titian
Titian was a Venetian Renaissance artist who along with his assistants painted as many as 30 different versions of Venus and Adonis in the mid- or second half of the 17th century. The paintings show a nude Venus attempting to restrain Adonis, who is about to go to the hunt. Adonis, who has two dogs with him, looks down at her with what might be considered a disdainful glance. One version of the painting shows Adonis with a jaunty little cap on his head, much as he is depicted in the poem (Lines 339, 351).
“The Myth of Venus and Adonis: From Incest to Beauty” by Antonis Chaliakopoulos (2021)
This is a thorough exploration of the many aspects of the Venus and Adonis story, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to other adaptations from Orphic hymns to Shakespeare. (Shakespeare depicts Adonis as a “rather snobbish character who refuses to talk to women.”) The article includes many photographs of paintings that depict the couple.
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By William Shakespeare
