Here's how I know I'm not a critic: Every time I read Shakespeare, I immediately dub the most recently read play to be his best play. I read Romeo and Juliet when I was a teen and I was floored. Two years ago, I read the Twelfth Night and it was the funniest thing I ever read. Then I read The Tempest, and I can still quote lines from it.

Having said all that, King Lear is his greatest play. No doubt (until I can read the next one). Academics and Critics will have you believe that Shakespeare is the most gifted flowery prose/poetry writer. He's so much more though. The stories are never really given enough attention in the dissection/analysation. At least, not enough to make an impression on the average reader. The story of King Lear is thick. If you know anything about contemporary literary storytelling, you'll know that thick stories are a rarity. To convey so much of the story and so little space, one has to be gifted. Drama today is infected with this sadness in almost every medium. Drama and sadness are almost interchangeable, it seems like. I don't understand that at all. Neither does Shakespeare, it seems to me. Sure, there are untimely deaths and conceit and plotting and what not. But in the end, some things are resolved. There is a little hope all along the way. When people are blinded and when people go mad and when loyal servants are banished and when sons are fathers are pitted against one another. Through all of that, there is hope in King Lear. If not hope, then a striving for better prospects. A rightful heir is stripped off his power is forced by circumstance to beg. In the plays of today, there is no coming back from that. Life only goes downhill from there. That's not the Shakespeare way though. Even as the rightful heir is begging for his survival, he still feels the injustice that is done to him and he hangs about for ways to correct that. In the end, he might very well become the king of everything, depends on who you ask.

I know that there is almost nothing in that above about the play. I didn't intentionally do that to avoid spoilers. I can't really spoil Shakespeare for you, history and culture will already have done that. I didn't discuss much plot because there is no need for its discussion. Damn the critics and their critical interpretations. Just read for sheer pleasure. I assure you that you won't regret it.