What’s Up With the Title?

None of Shakespeare’s sonnets actually have titles; instead, we just refer to them as the numbers of their order in the sequence, or, in a few cases, by their famous first lines (if you just say the words "marriage of true minds" to any English teacher, we’ll bet she can identify this poem immediately – but don’t take our word for it, try it!). The sonnets appeared in this order in their original printing, way back in 1609, and this sequence hasn’t changed since.