The vogue for composing sonnets arrived in England in the late sixteenth century. These short
verses told a story and were typically dedicated to a lady; standard themes were the lady’s
coldness and the poet’s despair. William Shakespeare’s efforts are distinctive in that many of
them are admonishments to a young man (to marry, to pro-create, to forswear vanity and cruelty),
rather than the more usual expressions of distress or delight attending romantic love. Whomever
they were intended for, the forty-eight sonnets in this deck deftly, delicately convey the spirit’s
confrontation with time, change, death, love, lust, and beauty.

These 48 fact-filled Knowledge Cards are a great source of condensed information—all in a deck
the size of a pack of playing cards! Discover the heights of historic wit and wisdom in this stimulating
compilation. An inspiration to the writer, philosopher, dreamer, student, teacher, or language lover,
this deck is sure to spark the imagination, and may even inspire you to feats of personal creation.