One of the most profound interpreters of Shakespeare’s plays is Andrew Cecil Bradley, professor at Oxford University, who has lectured on Shakespeare in Liverpool, Glasgow and Oxford. He used these lectures as the basis of his outstanding book “Shakespearean Tragedy”. This book is about a psychological analysis of four tragedies, which turns into philosophical generalizations: “The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, “The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice”, “The Tragedy of King Lear” and “Macbeth”.
In the first lecture “The substance of Shakespearean Tragedy”, Bradley states that Shakespearean Tragedy is always associated with people of “high rank”, often kings, princes, or chieftains; for example, as in “Romeo and Juliet”, representatives of the great families, whose dispute has social significance. The author asks the reader to pay attention to the central figure of the dramatic action, discarding the personal characteristics that distinguish one hero from another, and ask himself if they have common features that affect the tragic denouement.
Bradley claims that there is one such trait. All these heroes are unusual personalities. Shakespeare’s hero is a person of high rank or important social significance and his actions or suffering have unusual properties. However, that is not all. As the author writes, the hero also has an extraordinary nature, due to which he rises in some respect much higher than the average human level. It does not mean that the hero is an eccentric or an example of all kinds of positive qualities. Shakespeare never created standards of virtue: some heroes are not good people at all; and eccentrics are given a secondary role in plays. His tragic characters are made of the same substance as the readers. Nevertheless, their seemingly ordinary life spelled out with such pressure that they become head and shoulders above others.
The author proves that Shakespeare’s tragedy, unlike pseudo-tragedies, does not cause despondency. Shakespeare’s reader will not say that man is a poor, miserable creature after reading his plays. The hero can be disgusting, terrible, but never paltry. The hero’s destiny may break the heart of the reader or evoke a mystical feeling, but never a contemptuous one. The most hopeless cynic, reading his tragedies, ceases to be a cynic.
According to Andrew Cecil Bradley, Shakespeare’s tragedy is essentially a story about suffering and calamity leading to death. Usually the hero has to face death at the end. Bradley, going into the four great tragedies of Shakespeare, came to the conclusion that the heroes in them, and the situations out of the ordinary.
In these lectures, Bradley examines the four major tragedies from the one point of view. He does not speak of Shakespeare's place in English literature or drama history. The author only slightly describes his life and character, his path to the development of genius and mastery of art.
