When I was a dentist in Jamaica, Queens, I passed a church on the way to work every day for 42 years. Very humdrum. One day I noticed a photographer with an expensive tripod snapping pictures of the church. It had caught his artist's eye. When I passed the church after that I recognized it as a thing of beauty.

Also, with William Shakespeare. His stories come from numerous sources. Books, legends and old-wives' tales are common to the disinterested public. It takes someone with great insight or genius to take these simple tales and mold them into great works complete with character insight and with language that is intelligent and touching. That is the essence of Shakespeare's creative genius. First, to see the humanity and social interest in the story and secondarily, to put it on paper with glorious language and even derive psychological nuances in the characterization.

Think of his most famous characters. You know them almost as intimately, after seeing his plays, as you know your next-door neighbor.

Julius Caesar (poor guy), Othello (Iago duped him), Macbeth (ambitious wife), Hamlet (his mother remarried his uncle, after killing his father), Falstaff (a bit overweight), Shylock (the Jew), King Lear (who executed a bad will) and last of all, these young darlings, Romeo and Juliet.

We know these characters and their trials and tribulations.

Shakespeare was a poet! He wrote in iambic pentameter and in Modern Early English(1500-1800).

He took liberties with language, because there was no codified or written dictionary of words at that time. Some of his made-up words - bedroom - addiction - arouse -birthplace - blanket -critic - dwindle - frugal - impartial - jaded - majestic - outbreak - rand- monumental - luggage and obscene.

Some of Shakespeare's phrases that we live with and use today in the 21st Century - A Fool's Paradise - A Foregone conclusion - A sorry sight - All is well that ends well - and thereby hangs a tale - Dead as a doorknob - Bag and baggage - Greeneyed Monster - Brevity is the soul of wit - Come What May and Good Riddance.

Today, we have two schools of Shakespeare 1) Bardolatry - which is the worship of Shakespeare. 2) Anti Stratfordians - who claim he was not educated enough to have written all those plays. This is a bit of English Snobbery.

Shakespeare is a synonym for Genius and Creativity.