Shakespeare got it right. But John Donne makes him look like a Hallmark Card.

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This could possibly sound nerdy, and I know how we all love to avoid that label now, but all through middle school and high school I loved reading Shakespeare. There are times when the Bard's writing is not as riveting as some today, but his classics endure for a reason. There are many times when I wish I could be bilingual or had experienced a different language as my first language, but everything I read Shakespeare I am reminded what a gift it is to read it in the original English.

He captured to many raw human emotions so perfectly his stories are among the three most reference sources (in modern writing, there are three sources used for allusions more than any others: the bible, Greek and Roman mythology, and Shakespeare). Hmm. To be as commonly referenced as the Bible, he must have done something right.

So what does he have to say about love? I can only hope that you AT LEAST know of Romeo and Juliet, and I hazard to say that if you have not read it your education is not complete. You could be an engineer or a construction worker. You must read the works of Shakespeare. His entrapment with love and love at first site, however, is not just expressed in one of his best known works. William Shakespeare's explorations into the human emotion range from A Midnight Summer's Dream to Hamlet. I would highly recommend reading nearly all of them.

There is then the man, the poet, that author Margaret Edson in her play "Wit" (again, a must read. One might be thinking at this point that I am an English major, and while I do miss analyzing the classics and other works, as a Political Science Major with an interest in the Middle East, I am more than satisfied as of the past two months in my chosen area of study,)describes as making Shakespeare look like a Hallmark card. This would be John Donne. Although he wrote many types of poetry, he is well known for his love poems. Once read through of The Good-Morrow will emphasize this. (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/goodmorrow.htm I Sadly could not get the link button to work.) I understood what Shakespeare meant when he spoke of love at first site as I read these words in my high school years.

These classics have so much to teach us. In a world of modern media where love as objectification seems to be the main theme, one cannot forget the works of Shakespeare and John Donne.