A Lover's Complaint - William Shakespeare - A Classic Narrative Poem - "A Lover's Complaint" is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. It is given the title "A Lover's Complaint" in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609.
Although published as Shakespeare's work, the poem's authorship has become a matter of critical debate. The majority opinion is that it is by Shakespeare, though of inferior quality to his other works.
Despite its appearance in the published collection of the sonnets, critics have often doubted attribution to Shakespeare. "A Lover's Complaint" contains many words and forms not found elsewhere in Shakespeare, including several archaisms and Latinisms, and is sometimes regarded as rhythmically and structurally awkward. Conversely, other critics have a high regard for the poem's quality - Edmond Malone called it "beautiful", and suggested that Shakespeare may have been trying to compete with Edmund Spenser. Critics have seen thematic parallels to situations in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. According to John Kerrigan in Motives of Woe, the poem be regarded as an appropriate coda to the sonnets, with its narrative triangle of young woman, elderly man, and seductive suitor paralleling a similar triangle in the sonnets themselves.