Teacher Guide

Shakespeare's Sonnets Lesson Plan

Relationship to Other Books

Though the most obvious connection to Shakespeare's sonnets is the other poems and plays by Shakespeare — try Othello for similar themes of romance, jealousy, and despair — his work is also intimately connected to that of other Renaissance poets like John Donne and Edmund Spenser, and later sonneteers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and E.E. Cummings. 

The sonnets have inspired various theatrical interpretations of their own, including Love's Fire, a collection of short plays based on various sonnets. This might be an interesting read for students who show interest in the sonnets.

Shakespeare's sonnets are mostly love...

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