Appreciating Shakespeare's Work In General

I was going to first start off by saying that I would be going off on a limb in saying that I've never really appreciated Shakespeare's work, but after reading some of the most recent posts, I guess I'm not being too adventurous. But anywho, what I mean to say is that I haven't really appreciated his work until now. That is, I've always had trouble understanding why his work has been considered to be so extremely revolutionary and "special." But after reading King Lear, and reading everyone's thoughts on it, as well as The Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest, I get it. Now, instead of viewing his works simply as plays with difficult wording, complex plots (as Holly mentioned), "weird" names, and love stories that almost always end in death, I see past it, into the depths of the meaning behind all of it. I have realized how well Shakespeare has been able to capture and portray the tendencies of human nature through his characters, tendencies such as selfishness and greed. When the two are put together, which they so often are, they tend to lead to the downfall of a man; Shakespeare often portrays this when his characters die throughout his plays, but most commonly at the end. I realize now that we still read his works today because the conflicts and characters he wrote about years ago are problems and people we face today, such as betrayal of one’s family for the sake of financial gain (King Lear), the idea that women should not be second to men (The Taming of the Shrew), and the use of other people as stepping stones to reach success (The Tempest).