Shakespeare became famous as a poet before most people knew that he also wrote plays. To judge by the frequency of admiring allusions and demand for printed copies, Venus and Adonis was the most popular long poem of the Elizabethan age. Like Shakespeare’s subsequent narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece, it was written during the period in 1593–94 when the theatres were closed due to plague, and based on the works of the Roman poet Ovid. These works are calling cards which announce Shakespeare’s poetic sophistication, perhaps in response to the jibe in Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (1592) about ‘Shake-scene’, the ‘upstart crow’, the vulgar jack-of-all-trades from the country.

Shakespeare became famous as a poet before most people knew that he also wrote plays. To judge by the frequency of admiring allusions and demand for printed copies, Venus and Adonis was the most popular long poem of the Elizabethan age.

William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564—23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of around 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.