William Shakespeare wrote a total of 154 sonnets, which were first published together in a quarto in 1609
. In addition to these 154 sonnets, there are six more sonnets included within some of his plays-Romeo and Juliet , Henry V , and Love's Labour's Lost -and a partial sonnet found in Edward III
. The 154 sonnets cover themes such as love, beauty, time, mortality, infidelity, and jealousy. The first 126 sonnets are primarily addressed to a young man, often called the "fair youth," while the last 28 sonnets are addressed to or refer to a woman known as the "dark lady"
. Thus, Shakespeare's sonnet corpus consists mainly of 154 formally published sonnets plus a handful of additional sonnets embedded in his plays.
