While preparing for my upcoming lecture on Romeo and Juliet (next Wednesday at 11 am at the Atwater library), a realization came to me regarding Shakespeare's use of poetry. It occurred to me that no other form of writing could contain all the complexity of life - its changes and ambiguities, the fact that we have to search and think to find meanings in events, our psychological upheavals and lack of inner consistency, the way that words and objects can have meanings far beyond themselves - all of these are best expressed, and perhaps only expressed, through poetry. Shakespeare, the "Chief Poet", as Keats called him, allows us to see the workings and potentials of our minds through the unwavering quality of his poetic writing. And even his prose is poetic, as you know from this justly famous passage: "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" Shakespeare shows us not only what we are but also what we may be.