h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree wholeheartedly with the Bard's romantic potential. Perhaps it's the rhythmic flow of words or the honesty of the emotion conveyed. Elizabeth Taylor once said the most erotic nights she shared with Richard Burton started with him reading Shakespeare to her. There is little enoughg romance in the world as it is.
Gentlemen, go for it!

If the attraction of the romance poetry of the bard lies in its conveyance of honest emotion, how can appropriating it for your own purposes be called "romantic"? This is possibly why using the romantic poetry of the bard is such a risky venture. As for Ms. Taylor and Mr. Burton, the romance of an evening started with the reading of love poetry was not sustained by the poetry itself!

Shall I compare thee to a summer...

What a load of old tosh -

Shakespeare;

He's forthright,
He's frank.
He's a pile of old w**k.

While your assertion concerning shakespeare's romantic poetry
and its invalidity as a romantic device is accurate,
it should perhaps be qualified that the use of Shakespeare's
non-romantic sentiments for romantic ends can be very romantic.
picture the scene;
"Dick Burton strides manfully through the door, Liz looks up
from her daily mail, to see his face there, chiselled, beside the
microwave. her bosoms heave, collectively,
thus ensues:
RB: Neither a borrower nor a lender be, thou impudent strumpet
ET: What meanest thou?
RB: By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!
ET: Oh! Stop!
RB: I shall think meat to putt an antique deposition on!
ET: I don't know what you mean, but Ooooh anyway!
RB: When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw!
Now is the winter of our discontent, Hath a jew not eyes?
ET: Oh Yes!
RB: Lay on macduff!
LT: No, on me! On me!"
and so on and so on.

EXCERPTED from 'Seduction techniques for the discerning Martini drinker' By Alexander Auntie