The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Shakespeare, William. “The Phoenix and the Turtle.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45085/the-phoenix-and-the-turtle-56d2246f86c06.

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotation are taken.

William Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous writer who ever wrote in English. Born in the small English town of Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, he was the son of a glove-maker. Shakespeare married young and had three children with his wife, Anne, before leaving Stratford-upon-Avon for an unknown destination. Ten years later, he resurfaced in London, working as an actor with the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The company was very successful, and Shakespeare was soon its primary playwright, authoring 36 plays that were well-received during his lifetime. He also wrote over 150 sonnets and several longer poems. After his death in 1616, his colleagues gathered his plays together and had them published as a folio, which allowed him to become, as Ben Jonson famously said, "not of an age, but for all time": still well known and studied even today.

"The Phoenix and the Turtle" is one of Shakespeare's few narrative poems. It is commonly known as an allegory, or a text that contains a hidden moral, political, or social meaning. It describes a funeral for the phoenix and the turtledove, which is attended by a number of other birds. In lamenting their deaths, the poem portrays the love between the phoenix and the turtle as an ideal union.