Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare (Review)

Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare

About the author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in English history. He wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets and other verses.

Blurb

Venus and Adonis is Shakespeare’s narrative poem about the love of the goddess Venus for the mortal youth Adonis, dedicated partly to his patron, the Earl of Southampton (thought by some to be the beautiful youth to which many of the Sonnets are addressed). The poem recounts Venus’ attempts to woo Adonis, their passionate coupling, and Adonis’ rejection of the goddess, to which she responds with jealousy, with tragic results.

Review

I decided after reading Twelfth Night that I wanted to read more Shakespeare and so reading through his list of works I thought I would go for something that I have never heard of before from Shakespeare and this is what I chose. Sadly I was rather disappointed.

I will be honest it started off well, I soon got into the flow of the poem and was enjoying it, but then it just kept going. It seemed to go on forever and I will be honest before the end I kept checking to see how much more I had left to read and even contemplated giving it up.

This really was not for me and I think it was mainly due to length, I just felt that it could have been shorter and although the language was beautiful and a lot of innuendos were clearly in the text it just seemed to be a bit waffly for my tastes.

All in all this was not my cup of tea and I think I will stick with Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets in the future. Only 2 out 5 Dragons from me this time.

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