154 sonnets that constitute the most sustained meditation on love, time, jealousy, and mortality in the English language. The Fair Youth sequence, the Dark Lady poems, and the Rival Poet (whoever they were) have generated more literary scholarship than almost any other body of work. Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 are taught in every high school; the complete sequence remains inexhaustible.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.