Venus and Adonis

The narrative poem explores the themes of unrequited love and desire through the character of Venus, who seeks to seduce the handsome Adonis, more interested in hunting than romance. Blending elements of pastoral beauty with eroticism, comedy, and tragedy, the work also offers reflections on love's nature and observations of the natural world. Notably, it is structured in six-line stanzas of iambic pentameter, now recognized as the "Venus and Adonis stanza," a form that influenced later poets.