Shakespeare dedicates Venus and Adonis as "the first heir of my invention." In doing so, Shakespeare acknowledges that even he considered his plays as literary works inferior to poetry. The poem, a brief epic, evokes comparisons to Marlowe's Hero and Leander, to which Venus and Adonis owes at least some debt. Equal parts comic and erotic, the poem is Shakespeare's take on a story told by Ovid in which Venus falls for the handsome youth Adonis.
Shakespeare, however, makes one crucial twist to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Ovid's Venus is an irresistible, tragic goddess whose love Adonis returns. Venus and Adonis portrays the goddess as a comically frustrated seductress who can't seem to distract Adonis from his love of hunting. Shakespeare also includes elements from Metamorphoses from the tales of Narcissus and Hermaphroditus.
Venus and Adonis is a microcosm of Shakespeare's writing: taking a classical source and infusing it with both heightened formality and a playful humanity. Of course, the poem's comic overtones and animal sensuality caused it to lapse into critical disfavor.
Summary was taken from: http://www.bardweb.net/plays/index.html
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