where all the poets went to die [dead poets society]

7 - to woo women

"Tired, my dear Maria?"

Maria straightened in her seat, blinking a couple of times after yawning. She smiled sleepily up at her uncle, lifting her head up from her desk. "A little."

Keating's lips twitched and he glanced around the class. He narrowed in on the couple of faces that had now effectively become associated with his niece's and noticed, with great amusement, that all of them had a definite tired look about them. It seemed this group of teenagers has been up to something.

"Seems like quite of few of you are tired today," he said. "Some late-night studying?"

Maria cleared her throat, her eyes darting away from her uncle's questioning gaze. "Of sorts," she mumbled.

Keating hummed and stepped towards the blackboard, beginning the class. "A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. And we should not use very sad, we use-" Keating pointed to the back of the class. "Come on, Mr. Overstreet, you twerp."

"Morose?" Knox tried, recovering from a yawn.

"Exactly! Morose," Keating nodded and held in a snort when he saw Maria, Knox, Todd, Neil, Steven, Gerard, Richard, and Charlie all yawn simultaneously. "Now, language was developed for one endeavor and one endeavor alone, and that is?" Keating looked around for a victim to answer his question. He stopped in front of Todd's desk and looked at him expectantly. "Mr. Anderson? Come on! Are you a man or an amoeba?"

Todd looked up nervously and quite clearly tongue-tied so Keating paused momentarily before looking elsewhere much to Todd's relief.

"Mr. Perry?"

"Uh, to communicate."

"No!" Keating exclaimed loudly and waltzed to the front of the class to dramatically gesture to Maria. "It's to woo women."

Maria shrunk back into her seat with a sigh when she caught the mischievous twinkle in her uncle's eyes.

"Language, gentlemen, was invented for the sole purpose of wooing women. Language was made to be romantic. It was made to drip off of your tongues like honey and lure in the sweetest of ladies," he winked while the class laughed, but leaned closer with intrigue. "Let me tell you, gentlemen. It is not your physical strength, your prestige, or your handsomeness that will make women fall for you. It is how you will quell her worries with sweet prose that soothes her troubled mind. It is how you describe her, her beauty, both inside and out, and the future you envision with her. It is the words that are filled with unfaltering passion, unwavering loyalty and devotion that will make your special woman fall head over heels in love with you."

Keating suppressed a grin when he caught the long and contemplative look Charlie threw toward Maria. It seemed that perhaps his precious niece had a suitor, indeed.

"I am a firm believer in practice, my boys, so go ahead," Keating gestured to Maria. "You've got a great muse here and as her uncle, I give you permission to use her hair, her smile, and her eyes as inspiration for some love poetry."

The class let out a collective laugh as Maria's face morphed into a mortified expression.

Todd shot her a supportive smile when she shrunk lower under her desk, shaking her head and mouthing: "Help me, please."

"With that, today we're going to be talking about William Shakespeare," Keating pivoted the lesson smoothly.

A collective groan followed.

"I know. A lot of you looked forward to this about as much as you look forward to root canal work. But, we're gonna talk about Shakespeare as someone who writes something very interesting. Now, many of you have seen Shakespeare done very much like this," Keating began exaggerating a British accent, "'O Titus, bring your friend hither.' But if any of you have seen Mr. Marlon Brando, you know, Shakespeare can be done quite differently."