Shakespeare's Sonnets is a collection of 154 sonnets about love, beauty, death and the passage of time, published in 1609. Most of the poems follow the form of the "Shakespearian sonnet": four quatrains (4-line stanzas) followed by a couplet, written in iambic pentameter with the rhyming scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. Many of the poems break from the tradition of sonnets, introducing new themes and parodying other poets and love.
Towards the end of Shakespeares sonnets his preoccupation seems to be less with the fair young blonde and is steered in another direction towards that of a more mysterious dark lady Where sonnets in the fair youth section seem to be more straightforward focussing on beauty and its preservation against time The dark lady section however is far more thoughtful and takes a totally different angle on love in some poems dubbing it a maddening disease In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare instead of exaggerating