Venus and Adonis is a long narrative poem based on the story of Venus and Adonis found in Ovid's Metamorphoses. However, the poem features elements from a number of different genres throughout. As Shakespeare's first published piece of poetry, the poem showcases his interest in drama and poetry alike, as well as his connection to antiquity, pastoralism, satire, and meta-poetic commentary.
One of the defining characteristics of Venus and Adonis is that it is in large part a lengthy dialogue between the two central characters. The third-person narrator appears infrequently, often only to describe Venus's processing of Adonis's rejections and eventually his absence altogether. Until Adonis leaves to hunt the wild boar, the poem is composed mostly of lengthy arguments between Venus and Adonis about whether Adonis should return Venus's affections. In this way, the poem often reads like a play that features a series of successive monologues. Readers may even recognize early incarnations of lines from Shakespeare's later plays. Venus's promise to Adonis that she will "not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety, / But rather famish them amid their plenty" (19-20), for example, is markedly similar to Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1606) when he says, "she makes hungry where she most satisfies." Thus, the dramatic element of Venus and Adonis showcases Shakespeare's interest in storytelling through direct interactions between characters.
Elements of pastoralism are also at work in the poem, as Venus and Adonis traverse an unspecific wooded area in relative isolation. Such a setting is common in pastoral poetry and represents an idyllic escapism removed from the constraints of the real world. By using this setting for the poem, Shakespeare keeps the central focus on the dynamic between Venus and Adonis while also allowing elements of the natural world to bolster the complexity of their interactions. The mare that runs by, the fearsome wild boar, and the flower that grows in Adonis's blood are all characteristics of the landscape that ultimately serve as reflections on Venus and Adonis themselves.
Finally, critics have long debated over whether Venus and Adonis is a satirical poem intended to entertain readers with its reliance on gender reversal. Indeed, Venus's animalistic and often violent behaviors in her pursuit of Adonis are exaggerated and hyperbolic, suggesting that Shakespeare's inversion of the traditional gendered dynamic is meant to parody the original Roman myth. More likely, however, Shakespeare's inversion of conventional gender roles serves as commentary on the Petrarchan tradition to which he himself often subscribed and which he also frequently challenged. The poem effectively places Venus in the role of a Petrarchan lover – usually a man suffering from unrequited love by a woman who does not know he exists. That Venus – the ultimate symbol of powerful love – cannot succeed in her pursuit of Adonis introduces a comedic anachronism to the poem: the Petrarchan paradigm of a lonely, powerless lover extends to a figure of antiquity, and moreover to the goddess of love herself.
