Characters as though they were real people

The outcome of the five years as Professor of Poetry in Oxford were A. C. Bradley’s two major works, Shakespearean Tragedy, published in 1904, and Oxford Lectures on Poetry, published in 1909. All his published work was originally delivered as lectures. A. C. Bradley pedagogical manner and his self-confidence made him to a real guide for many students to the meaning of Shakespeare.

Though Bradley has sometimes been criticised for writing of Shakespeare's characters as though they were real people, his book is probably the most influential single work of Shakespearean criticism ever published. It has been reprinted more than two dozen times and is itself the subject of a scholarly book, Katherine Cooke's A. C. Bradley and His Influence in Twentieth-Century Shakespeare Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)[2].

However, more recently his work has been greatly discredited by many, often said to make anachronistic errors and attempt to apply late 19th century conceptions of morality to early 17th century society. Since the 1980's, the importance of poststructuralist methods of criticism has resulted in students turning away from his work. His other works were: Poetry for Poetry's Sake (1901), A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam (1901), and A Miscellany (1929). Directory > Reference > Wikipedia