A.C. Bradley was born at Park Hill in Clapham, Surrey. His father, Charles Bradley, was a well-known Anglican preacher and a leader of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Anglicans. Charles had many children from his two marriages, and A.C. Bradley was the youngest of nine children born to his second wife, Emma Linton. A.C. Bradley’s older brother was the philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley.

A.C. Bradley studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1874, he received a fellowship at Balliol. He initially lectured in English and later in philosophy until 1881. Afterward, he secured a position at the University of Liverpool, where he taught literature. In 1889, he moved to Glasgow as the Regius Professor. In 1901, he became the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, where he wrote his influential works “Shakespearean Tragedy” in 1904 and “Oxford Lectures on Poetry” in 1909. He received honorary fellowships from Balliol College and honorary doctorates from several universities, including Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Durham. He was even offered a prestigious chair at Cambridge, which he declined.

A.C. Bradley never married and lived in London with his sister. He passed away on September 2, 1935, at his residence on Holland Park Road in Kensington, London. In his will, he established a research fellowship to support young scholars studying English Letters.

During his five years as a professor of poetry at the University of Oxford, A.C. Bradley produced two important books: “Shakespearean Tragedy” in 1904 and “Oxford Lectures on Poetry” in 1909. Interestingly, all of his published works originally took the form of lectures.

Bradley’s teaching style and his strong self-assuredness made him a trusted guide for numerous students in understanding Shakespeare. His impact on the world of Shakespearean criticism was so significant that a humorous poem by Guy Boas in 1926 humorously imagined Shakespeare applying for a government job and struggling with questions about King Lear because he hadn’t read Bradley’s work.

While Bradley has faced some criticism for discussing Shakespeare’s characters as if they were real individuals, his book remains perhaps the most influential single work in the field of Shakespearean criticism ever published.

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Here are some key aspects of A.C. Bradley and his notable books:

1. “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1904): Perhaps A.C. Bradley’s most famous work, “Shakespearean Tragedy” is considered a seminal text in the field of Shakespearean criticism. In this book, Bradley examines the tragic works of William Shakespeare, including “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” and “Macbeth.” He provides in-depth analyses of the characters, themes, and dramatic techniques in these plays and offers interpretations that have had a lasting impact on the understanding of Shakespearean tragedy.
2. Scholarly Influence: “Shakespearean Tragedy” introduced the concept of the “tragic flaw” or “hamartia” in Shakespearean characters, which has since become a widely discussed and debated aspect of Shakespearean criticism. Bradley’s work has been instrumental in shaping the way scholars and readers analyze and interpret Shakespeare’s tragedies.
3. Other Works: While “Shakespearean Tragedy” is his most renowned book, A.C. Bradley wrote several other works on Shakespeare and literature. Some of his other notable publications include “Oxford Lectures on Poetry” (1909), “A Miscellany” (1929), and various essays and articles on literary topics.
4. Academic Career: A.C. Bradley was a respected academic, serving as a professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. His lectures and writings contributed significantly to the development of literary criticism and the appreciation of Shakespeare’s works.
5. Legacy: A.C. Bradley’s interpretations and insights into Shakespearean tragedy continue to be influential and are often referenced in contemporary Shakespearean studies. His work has left a lasting mark on the field of literary criticism and remains a valuable resource for scholars, students, and lovers of Shakespearean literature.

“Shakespearean Tragedy” by A.C. Bradley has been reprinted more than twenty-four times and even became the subject of a scholarly book called “A. C. Bradley and His Influence in Twentieth-Century Shakespeare Criticism” by Katherine Cooke.

However, as the mid-twentieth century rolled around, Bradley’s approach to Shakespearean analysis began to lose favor among scholars. It was criticized for containing anachronistic errors and for trying to apply late 19th-century ideas about morality and psychology from novels to a much earlier 17th-century society. Kenneth Burke’s 1951 article, “Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method,” challenged Bradley’s interpretation of characters, while L. C. Knights did a similar critique with his 1933 essay, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?” Interestingly, this question about Lady Macbeth’s children was never actually posed by Bradley and seems to have been made up by F. R. Leavis to mock irrelevant questions in Shakespeare criticism.

Starting in the 1970s, poststructuralist methods of criticism became more popular, and many students moved away from Bradley’s work. However, some scholars have recently revisited the concept of “character” as a historical category of evaluation, as seen in the work of Michael Bristol.

Harold Bloom, a prominent literary critic, acknowledged Bradley’s importance in the tradition of Shakespeare criticism, mentioning that Bradley, along with other critics like Johnson and Hazlitt, had influenced his own work.

In addition to his work on Shakespeare, Bradley also delivered various lectures and wrote other books, such as “Ideals of Religion,” which were the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow in 1907-1908. He also gave the Adamson Lecture at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1909 and the Shakespeare Lecture for the British Academy in 1912. Bradley’s other writings include “Aristotle’s Conception of the State,” “Poetry for Poetry’s Sake” (1901), “A Commentary on Tennyson’s in Memoriam” (1901), and “A Miscellany” (1929).