The Little Book of Shakespeare on Love

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No writer, before or since, has matched Shakespeare in terms of influence, critical acclaim or popular success. And the Bard had plenty to say about the subject of love - the word appears more than 2,000 times in his collected works! Packed full of timeless reflections on the subject - from the star-crossed devotions of Romeo and Juliet to the witty rhetoric in Much Ado About Nothing - and complemented by fascinating facts about Shakespeare and his works - this Little Book contains some of the most romantic and profound lines ever written in the English language.

No-one has influenced the modern rom-com genre as much as Shakespeare. Perhaps the Bard's most influential romantic comedy is Much Ado About Nothing, the timeless tale of sworn enemies who become lovers. Countless pop-culture pairings owe a debt to the play, from Elizabeth and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice to the leads in When Harry Met Sally and Something's Gotta Give.

Shakespeare's best-loved sonnet, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?", touches on the themes of unattainable love and mortality. The poem is part of Shakespeare's "Fair Youth" sequence of sonnets, which many historians believe are actually about a young man.