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Which poems did William Shakespeare dedicate to the earl of Southampton?
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, detail of an oil painting attributed to John Taylor, c. 1610. The portrait is called the “Chandos Shakespeare” because it once belonged to the duke of Chandos.
William Shakespeare dedicated two of his narrative poems to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton:
- Venus and Adonis (1593)
- The Rape of Lucrece (1594)
These are the only works for which Shakespeare wrote formal dedicatory prefaces. While it has been argued that Shakespeare’s sonnets were also addressed to the earl, this remains a subject of scholarly debate rather than a confirmed dedication.12