In Celebration of Shakespeare

Shakespeare is 400 years old today! Most people speculate his birthday was today, anyway, his death was.
 

I appreciate Shakespeare although I must confess I have not experienced the bulk of his writing. A painting reflecting A Midsummer Night's Dream hangs in my youngest daughter’s bedroom. I have a Shakespeare nutcracker and I can recite lines from my favorite plays: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Julius Caesar.
 

He invented words, was a writer in the truest sense of the word – he knew his audience and wrote for them. He is bawdy and funny, serious and thought-provoking. He wrote to make a living – developed a five-act plot formula that worked every time. And he was a poet – ah, what English teacher hasn’t used his lines to teach iambic pentameter?
 

But his words – his ideas – still resonate today. The lines below from Romeo and Juliet introduce the idea of love at first sight!

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.