Shakespearean Tragedy is a landmark work of literary criticism. It is at once the pinnacle of the nineteenth centurys love affair with Shakespeare and the starting point for a new century of Shakespeare scholarship.
Critics have charged that A.C. Bradley attends to character at the expense of other elements of the plays, such as theme, dramatic structure, and historical background; Bradleys defenders have praised the work for its philosophical and psychological insights. As the first important, book-length academic study in English of four of Shakespeares major tragedies - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth - Bradleys work both influenced and enabled modern Shakespearean literary criticism even as it engaged with, and often rebutted, conventional Romantic and Victorian interpretations of the plays and their author.