Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth - Softcover

Bradley, A C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1544045719 ISBN 13: 9781544045719

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017

Synopsis

In these lectures I propose to consider the four principal tragedies of Shakespeare from a single point of view. Nothing will be said of Shakespeare’s place in the history either of English literature or of the drama in general. No attempt will be made to compare him with other writers. I shall leave untouched, or merely glanced at, questions regarding his life and character, the development of his genius and art, the genuineness, sources, texts, interrelations of his various works. Even what may be called, in a restricted sense, the ‘poetry’ of the four tragedies — the beauties of style, diction, versification — I shall pass by in silence. Our one object will be what, again in a restricted sense, may be called dramatic appreciation; to increase our understanding and enjoyment of these works as dramas; to learn to apprehend the action and some of the personages of each with a somewhat greater truth and intensity, so that they may assume in our imaginations a shape a little less unlike the shape they wore in the imagination of their creator. For this end all those studies that were mentioned just now, of literary history and the like, are useful and even in various degrees necessary. But an overt pursuit of them is not necessary here, nor is any one of them so indispensable to our object as that close familiarity with the plays, that native strength and justice of perception, and that habit of reading with an eager mind, which make many an unscholarly lover of Shakespeare a far better critic than many a Shakespeare scholar. (Bradley, from the Introduction)

About this title

About the Author

Bradley, Andrew Cecil was born in 1851 in Cheltenham. He was the son of a clergyman and the younger brother of the philosopher F.H. Bradley. He received his education at Cheltenham College and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became a fellow in 1874, lecturing in Philosophy and English. In 1882 Bradley became the first Professor of Literature and History at Liverpool, and later on Professor of English Language and Literature at Glasgow from 1890, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1901 until 1906, when he retired from academic life.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1544045719
• ISBN 13: 9781544045719
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 426
• Editor: Payne David G