ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The poem tells the story of Venus, the goddess of Love; of her unrequited love; and of her attempted seduction of Adonis, an extremely handsome young man, who would rather go hunting. The poem is pastoral, and at times erotic, comic and tragic. It contains discourses on the nature of love, and observations of nature.

Detailed explanation-2: -The story of Venus and Adonis appears in Book Ten of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Orpheus tells us the story when he laments to the trees and wild animals after the loss of Euridyce. Venus is desperately attracted to the young Adonis, who, being more interested in the art of hunting, does not show any form of affection.

Detailed explanation-3: -Venus and Adonis stanza, a stanza consisting of an iambic pentameter quatrain and couplet with the rhyme scheme ababcc. The stanza was so called because it was used by William Shakespeare in his poem Venus and Adonis (1593).

Detailed explanation-4: -Introduction to the poem With Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare in 1593 launches his career as a poet. The poem is a minor epic, a genre chosen by a large number of poets in the 1590s for their first efforts, each attempt at the genre self-consciously imitating the others.