SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived
Episodes
Summary & Conclusion
30 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this, the – at least for the time-being – final episode of his podcast on William Shakespeare's Sonnets, Sebastian Michael offers a brief s...
Dating the Sonnets — With Miro Roman
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Sebastian Michael is joined by architect, author, and coder Miro Roman to talk about their experimentation with applying a ma...
The Quarto Edition of 1609 and its Dedication
16 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special edition of Sonnetcast, Sebastian Michael takes a closer look at our original source for William Shakespeare's Sonnets, examining i...
A Lover's Complaint
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Following an established tradition at the time, William Shakespeare furnishes his collection of 154 Sonnets with a poetic Complaint that acts as a cod...
Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God, Lying Once Asleep
02 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 154 brings to a close William Shakespeare's collection of sonnets, and it does so hand-in-hand with Sonnet 153, of which it is not a contin...
Sonnet 153: Cupid Laid by His Brand and Fell Asleep
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 153 is the first of two poems that round off the collection, both retelling the same story of a tired love god Cupid who falls asleep, having p...
The Dark Lady
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Sebastian Michael summarises the second part of The Sonnets by William Shakespeare in the 1609 collection and examines the qu...
Sonnet 152: In Loving Thee Thou Knowst I Am Forsworn
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last poem in the collection to address William Shakespeare's mistress directly, Sonnet 152 conclusively answers some questions, while leaving ...
Sonnet 151: Love Is Too Young to Know What Conscience Is
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The heavily and obviously innuendo-laden Sonnet 151 returns to a struggle the poet purports to experience between what his soul – the 'nobler pa...
Sonnet 150: O From What Power Hast Thou This Powerful Might
28 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The at first glance unspectacular Sonnet 150 sets off from the base laid down by the previous three sonnets and now wonders out loud just how the mist...
Sonnet 149: Canst Thou, O Cruel, Say I Love Thee Not
21 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After establishing in the previous two sonnets that he is possessed of a 'fever' that makes him 'mad' and that distorts his vision, Wi...
Sonnet 148: O Me! What Eyes Hath Love Put in My Head
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Sonnet 148, William Shakespeare develops the themes revisited with Sonnet 147 and further elaborates on his realisation that reason has abandoned h...
Sonnet 147: My Love Is as a Fever, Longing Still
07 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Sonnet 147, William Shakespeare brings together two themes that have agitated him before: firstly the at the time fairly commonplace notion of love...
Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Centre of My Sinful Earth
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his solemn, near pious, Sonnet 146, William Shakespeare for the first and only time speaks directly to his soul and entreats it to look after its...
Sonnet 145: Those Lips That Love's Own Hand Did Make
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 145 stands out in the collection for several reasons. Some factual, some conjectural, some somewhere in-between. Most obviously and beyond inte...
Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have, of Comfort and Despair
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his exceptionally explicit and startlingly revelatory Sonnet 144 William Shakespeare addresses head on the fact that his mistress and his lover a...
Sonnet 143: Lo! As a Careful Housewife Runs to Catch
10 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his uncharacteristically lighthearted Sonnet 143, William Shakespeare plants a picture in our minds of the poet as a crying toddler placed on the...
Sonnet 142: Love Is My Sin, and Thy Dear Virtue Hate
03 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 142 William Shakespeare picks up on the notion of 'sin' employed in the last line of the previous sonnet, and now juxtaposes this ...
Sonnet 141: In Faith, I Do Not Love Thee With Mine Eyes
27 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 141 is one of several poems in the collection that show William Shakespeare to be deeply ill at ease with his lust and his love for his mistres...
Special Guest: Professor Phyllis Rackin — Shakespeare and Women
20 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Phyllis Rackin, Professor Emerita of English from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and former president of the ...
Sonnet 140: Be Wise as Thou Art Cruel, Do Not Press
13 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 140, William Shakespeare at first seems to set out on some general counsel for his mistress not to try his patience too much, as doing so ...
Sonnet 139: O Call Not Me to Justify the Wrong
06 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 139, William Shakespeare finds himself quite comfortably in the domain of the classical Petrarchan sonnet, invoking the themes and poetic ...
Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
29 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 138 William Shakespeare takes a step back and reflects on how both he and his mistress in their relationship with each other are effective...
Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
22 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Sonnet 137, William Shakespeare draws together two of the themes established by the 'Dark Lady Sonnets' thus far: his mistress's unconv...
Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come so Near
15 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Sonnet 136, William Shakespeare part develops, part reiterates the 'argument', such as it is, of Sonnet 135, that in amongst an abundance of men wh...
Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will
08 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 135 William Shakespeare embarks on an exercise in making as much use of – and mischief with – his own name as poetic acrobatics will a...
Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
01 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 134 continues the argument from Sonnet 133 and now refines the plea made by that sonnet for the young lover to be freed from the mistress's sha...
Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart to Groan
25 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his astonishingly frank Sonnet 133 William Shakespeare attempts to come to terms with the fact that his young lover is also having an affair with ...
Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I Love, and They, as Pitying Me
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 132, William Shakespeare suspends the charge brought against his mistress at the end of the previous sonnet that she is 'black' in nothing...
Sonnet 131: Thou Art as Tyrannous so as Thou Art
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 131 connects directly to Sonnet 130 and now invokes a further poetic trope, that of the tyrannous mistress who makes her admirer to groan for l...
Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare, from the first, famous and oft-quoted line onwards, strikes a note possibly of defiance, possibly of satire, pos...
Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
27 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 129 is the most explicitly sexual, and therefore sexually explicit, poem in the collection so far, and it is the first to betray a deep unease ...
Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst
20 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 128, William Shakespeare employs the well-worn poetic trope of a lover who envies the musical instrument being played by his mistress its ...
Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 127 is the first of 26 poems in the 1609 collection which together are generally known as the Dark Lady Sonnets. While William Shakespeare hims...
The Fair Youth
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Sebastian Michael looks at the first 126 Sonnets in the 1609 collection and examines the principal questions they present: - ...
Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who in Thy Power
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 126 is the last poem in which William Shakespeare addresses his younger lover and so marks the end of the Fair Youth series in the collection f...
Sonnet 125: Were't Aught to Me I Bore the Canopy
23 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 125 is the last in this group of three which effectively concludes the series of sonnets that concern themselves with William Shakespeare's lov...
Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But the Child of State
16 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Having denied time the power to make his love change in the previous poem, William Shakespeare now with Sonnet 124 turns his attention to politics, st...
Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
09 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 123 is the first in a final group of three sonnets that speak the penultimate words on William Shakespeare's relationship with his young ma...
Sonnet 122: Thy Gifts, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his curiously themed Sonnet 122, William Shakespeare tells his younger lover that although he has parted with a notebook he had received as a gif...
Sonnet 121: Tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
23 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 121, William Shakespeare claims his right to be who he is and negates the authority of others to pass judgement on him and his actions, sp...
Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 120 William Shakespeare draws a line under the explanations and excuses offered throughout the previous three sonnets for his own infideli...
Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 119, William Shakespeare further elaborates on his metaphor, introduced in Sonnet 118, of having taken bitter medicines to prevent himself...
Sonnet 118: Like as to Make Our Appetites More Keen
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 118 continues William Shakespeare's defence or explanation of his infidelities towards his younger lover with an argument that may well strike ...
Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus, That I Have Scanted All
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 117 is the first of three distinct but related sonnets that all seek to excuse, or at the very least explain, Shakespeare's own infidelitie...
Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his celebrated and oft-recited Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare offers not so much a definition as a characterisation of what true love is: unshak...
Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 115 William Shakespeare turns his attention to the perplexing paradox that a love that is experienced as complete and absolute and therefo...
Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his curiously cryptic Sonnet 114, William Shakespeare poses a rhetorical question to his younger lover, asking whether his experience of seeing h...
Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 113, William Shakespeare returns once more to the theme of separation, reflecting on how, when he is away from his younger lover, everythi...
Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth th'Impression Fill
22 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 112, William Shakespeare picks up directly from Sonnet 111 in which he asked his younger lover to pity him, and he now goes one step furth...
Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 111, William Shakespeare shifts focus from his infidelities in relation to his younger lover, addressed in the previous two sonnets, to a ...
Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True, I Have Gone Here and There
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With his exceptionally candid and forthright Sonnet 110, William Shakespeare at once completes his apotheosis of his young lover, while at the same ti...
Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 109 is the first of two truly remarkable sonnets that speak of William Shakespeare's own infidelities towards his young lover during a period o...
Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 108, William Shakespeare loops back into sentiments expressed intermittently since Sonnet 76, but particularly again recently in Sonnet 10...
Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears, Nor the Prophetic Soul
17 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Of all the poems in the collection first published in 1609, Sonnet 107 most clearly and most compellingly seems to refer to external events that shap...
Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
10 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 106 sees Shakespeare return to eulogising his young lover in outwardly straightforward terms. And rather than looking ahead to times to come wh...
Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry
03 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 105 presents a playful paradox that is no doubt fully intended on William Shakespeare's part. Addressing, for a change, not his young lover di...
Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
27 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With his celebrated and much-debated Sonnet 104, William Shakespeare appears to set out to do primarily three things: first and foremost, to reassure ...
Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
20 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 103 is the fourth and last in this group of four sonnets with which William Shakespeare seeks to excuse himself for not writing more poetry to,...
Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming
13 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 102, William Shakespeare returns to addressing his young lover directly, though still in explanation and indeed defence of the extended pe...
Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends
06 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Although at first glance Sonnet 101 can stand on its own, it so closely connects to Sonnet 100 that it really in all likelihood should be considered t...
Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst So Long
29 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 100 is the first in a group of four sonnets that speak of a hiatus in Shakespeare's poetry writing to his young lover. In the collection first...
Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation (OP)
22 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Professor David Crystal OBE, one of the world's leading linguists with over 100 books to his name and a global reputation...
Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
15 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare published in 1609, Sonnet 99 is unique for two reasons that are possibly related: it is the o...
Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Sonnet 97 spoke of an absence from his lover that felt to Shakespeare "like a winter" even though it actually took place during the s...
Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath My Absence Been
01 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 97 ushers in a new phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover, which, following the upheaval, anguish, doubt, an...
Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare
25 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Deputy Director (Education) and Associate Professor in Shakespeare and Theatre at The Shakespeare In...
Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity. Easing off on the h...
Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame
11 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With his astoundingly forthright Sonnet 95, William Shakespeare admonishes his young lover in the most uncompromising terms yet, and he rounds off his...
Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None
04 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare takes a step back from his discourse in poetry, addressed directly to his young lover, and reflects more broadly a...
Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True
28 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 93 is the third of three sonnets that pivot William Shakespeare's stance towards his young lover from one of pure praise and adulation to o...
Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 92 continues from Sonnet 91 and sets out a compelling – if perhaps strictly speaking somewhat sophistic – argument why the young man may, a...
Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill
14 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 91, William Shakespeare reclaims his place in the young man's favour, and for the first time in a while – in the published sequence ...
Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now
07 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 90 is the third of three poems that form a 'group within a group', purporting to accept, even support, any decision the young man may w...
Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault
30 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 89 continues the line of argumentation set up with Sonnet 88 and expounds on the steps William Shakespeare is willing to take to demonstrate to...
Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
23 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Having bid his lover farewell in Sonnet 87 and effectively conceded that this young man is out of his league, starting with Sonnet 88, and stretching ...
Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Possessing
16 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With its complete change in tone, Sonnet 87 ushers in a new and decidedly different phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his youn...
Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare
09 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Gabriel Egan, Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Centre for Textual Studies at De Montfort University in Le...
The Rival Poet
02 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Much has been written and said, speculated and surmised about the Rival Poet in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, with hypotheses ranging from the idea...
Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 86 is the last of the Rival Poet group of sonnets, and it gives a final reason why William Shakespeare has, as he himself put it in Sonnet 85, ...
Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 85, William Shakespeare concludes the group-within-a-group of four sonnets that concern themselves with his own defence against the charge...
Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 84, William Shakespeare continues and underpins his defence of himself against the charge, referenced explicitly in Sonnet 83, that he has...
Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 83 picks up on the notion, introduced in Sonnet 82, of a 'gross painting' in words that other poets make of the young man with the '...
Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married to My Muse
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 82, William Shakespeare resumes his discussion with the young man of his own status as a poet in the young man's life, attempting a co...
Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph to Make
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 81, although it appears right in the middle of the Rival Poet group of sonnets, does not concern itself with any poet other than Shakespeare at...
Sonnet 80: O How I Faint When I of You Do Write
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With his amazingly brazen Sonnet 80, William Shakespeare metaphorically pushes the boat out in more sense than one and comes close to mocking not only...
Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid
07 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 79, William Shakespeare continues his lament, begun with Sonnet 78, that he no longer enjoys the exclusive privilege of writing poetry to ...
Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee for My Muse
31 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 78 is the first in a group of nine sonnets that concern themselves almost entirely with the apparent arrival on the scene of someone else who i...
The Halfway Point Summary
24 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This special episode summarises what we have learnt so far from the first 77 sonnets by William Shakespeare. It recaps the principal pointers that all...
Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear
17 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The curiously didactic Sonnet 77 marks the halfway point of the collection of 154 sonnets contained in the 1609 Quarto Edition and it stands out for s...
Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse so Barren of New Pride
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The deceptively unsensational Sonnet 76 asks a simple question and provides to this a straightforward enough answer that will hardly come as a surpris...
Sonnet 75: So Are You to My Thoughts as Food to Life
03 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 75 marks a moment of comparative calm in the turbulent relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover. With its sober assessment...
Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest
25 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 74 continues the argument from Sonnet 73, and now reflects on what will happen when I, the poet, William Shakespeare, am dead. My body will be ...
Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 73 is the first in a second pair of poems to meditate on the poet's age and mortality and to reflect on the point of his very existence. Bu...
Sonnet 72: O Lest the World Should Task You to Recite
11 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 72 picks up on Sonnet 71 and explains why the supposedly 'wise' world would look down on the young man for having loved or for still lo...
Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 71 is the first in a pair of poems which purport to urge the young man to forget the author after his death so as to spare him – the young m...
Sonnet 70: That Thou Are Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect
28 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Sonnet 70, William Shakespeare once more performs the poetic equivalent of a handbrake turn and swivels what we thought we could understand from ...
Sonnet 69: Those Parts of Thee That the World's Eye Doth View
21 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Taken on its own, Sonnet 69 presents a devastating indictment of William Shakespeare's young lover. Its uncompromising juxtaposition of the young ...
Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn
14 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 68 continues the argument from Sonnet 67 and shifts the focus of Shakespeare's opprobrium from the fashion for heavy make-up to that for we...
Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore With Infection Should He Live
07 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sonnet 67 picks up on the deeply dissatisfied mood of Sonnet 66 and develops the theme of a world that has lost its way right through Sonnet 68. On th...