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A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem usually attributed to William Shakespeare, although the poem's authorship is a matter of critical debate. A narrative poem is an extended poem which tells a story. ...
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Form and Content
The poem consists of forty-nine seven-line stanzas written in the rhyme royal (with the rhyme scheme ababbcc), a metre and structure identical to that of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece. In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ...
Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. ...
A rhyme scheme is the pattern or rhyming lines in a poem or in lyrics for music. ...
The Earl of Southampton, painted in 1594, aged 21, the year that Shakespeare dedicated The Rape of Lucrece to him The narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece is the graver work promised by English dramatist-poet William Shakespeare in his dedication to his patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton...
In the poem, the speaker sees a young woman weeping at the bank of a river, in which she throws torn-up letters, rings, and other tokens of love. An elderly shepherd asks the reason for her sorrow, and she responds by telling him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her. She concludes her story by conceding that she would fall for the young man's false charms again: In a draw in a mountainous region, a shepherd guides a flock of about 20 sheep amidst scrub and olive trees. ...
- O that infected moisture of his eye,
- O that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
- O that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly,
- O that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
- O all that borrowed motion seemingly ow'd,
- Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
- And new pervert a reconciled maid!
History and Authorship The poem was originally appended to the first complete edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. However, critics have often doubted attribution to Shakespeare. A Lover's Complaint contains many words and forms not found elsewhere in Shakespeare, including several archaisms and Latinisms, and is sometimes regarded as rhythmically and structurally awkward. Conversely, other critics have a high regard for the poem's quality, and see thematic parallels to situations in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. The poem can also be regarded as an appropriate coda to the sonnets, with its narrative triangle of young woman, elderly man, and seductive suitor paralleling a similar triangle in the sonnets themselves. Shakespeares sonnets comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. ...
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Alls Well That Ends Well is a comedy by William Shakespeare, which is also considered one of his problem plays. ...
Measure for Measure is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1603. ...
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External links - Free eBook A Lover's Complaint at Project Gutenberg
- A Lover's Complaint - HTML version of this title.
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