What is your favorite Shakespeare sonnet and why?

Answer 1

Sonnet # 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

I like this one because it's an atypical "love" poem. Rather than touting all the wonderful and alluring things he finds in the Dark Lady, he admits that he sees her in all her faulty glory-- and he loves her anyways. A love that is better than most, in fact, due to it's true nature.

Answer 2

My favorite one, Sonnet 18, is for you, the first four lines:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: ...

I like it with at least three reasons,

1. It was one of the Sonnets required to study as part of our literature courses during my college years,
2. Part of line 3, that is, the darling buds of May, was adopted as a title of a wonderful novel by H.E.Bates (please find one, read it and email me what you think),and
3. It's understandable and romantic, just think about reading it to your soul mate, that's why we recognize Shakespeare as a genius.

Keep reading and enjoy.

Answer 3

My favorite part in a Shakespeare play is not a sonnet, it is the prologue to Romeo and Juliet

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

I love this passage because it is so full of emotion and passion, it ignites in me a love story, a tragedy and one instant of happiness. Two lovers together forever in life and death.