Shakespeare very rarely makes the least attempt to…

“Shakespeare very rarely makes the least attempt to surprise by his catastrophes. They are felt to be inevitable, though the precise way in which they will be brought about is not, of course, foreseen.”

Andrew Coyle Bradley

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Shakespeare's tragedies feel inevitable, limiting surprise.

In simple terms: Predictable tragedies reduce shock.

Key Takeaway

Expect the unexpected.

Themes

literature predictability drama

Mood

thoughtful analytical

Type

critical analytical

When to use this quote

reading Shakespeare
writing drama
teaching literature

Key Concepts

narrative theory expectation management

Questions to Reflect On

How does inevitability affect emotional impact?
Can surprise be created through character choices?

A Different Perspective

Audiences may still be moved by emotional depth despite predictability.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

More by Andrew Coyle Bradley

But, in addition, there is, all through the tragedy, a constant alternation of rises and falls in this tension or in the emotional pitch…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

A Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may be called a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Both Brutus and Hamlet are highly intellectual by nature and reflective by habit. Both may even be called, in a popular sense, philosophic; Brutus…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Job was the greatest of all the children of the east, and his afflictions were well-nigh more than he could bear; but even if…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Shakespeare also introduces the supernatural into some of his tragedies; he introduces ghosts, and witches who have supernatural knowledge.

Andrew Coyle Bradley

In approaching our subject it will be best, without attempting to shorten the path by referring to famous theories of the drama, to start…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

We might not object to the statement that Lear deserved to suffer for his folly, selfishness and tyranny; but to assert that he deserved…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Most people, even among those who know Shakespeare well and come into real contact with his mind, are inclined to isolate and exaggerate some…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Shakespeare's idea of the tragic fact is larger than this idea and goes beyond it; but it includes it, and it is worth while…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

We cannot arrive at Shakespeare's whole dramatic way of looking at the world from his tragedies alone, as we can arrive at Milton's way…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

In the first place, it must be remembered that our point of view in examining the construction of a play will not always coincide…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

When Shakespeare begins his exposition thus he generally at first makes people talk about the hero, but keeps the hero himself for some time…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

In speaking, for convenience, of devices and expedients, I did not intend to imply that Shakespeare always deliberately aimed at the effects which he…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Nor does the idea of a moral order asserting itself against attack or want of conformity answer in full to our feelings regarding the…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from…

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Explore all 17 Andrew Coyle Bradley quotes

More Catastrophe quotes

Many individuals spend a considerable portion of their lifetimes in terror of one imagined catastrophe or another. The classic is that your immortal soul…

L. Neil Smith

I was asked the other day if I would be interested in the Nobel Prize, but I think that for me it would be…

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“..the sense of a catastrophe perpetually invoked and avoided creates a rapture in whose depths horror and pleasure coincide...”

Michel Leiris

To you, the people of Flint, I say, as I have before, I am sorry and I will fix it. No citizen of this…

Rick Snyder

Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements…

Harold Bloom

It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who…

Mike Nichols

We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred…

David Suzuki

“War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.”

Ruta Sepetys

The biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and…

Margaret Heffernan

All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only…

Leon Trotsky

When the regime changed in Japan, the Japanese changed; Russians too can change, as long as the conditions for it are present once again.…

Vladimir Voinovich

And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the 'extremes' in approach to the black man's problems…

Malcolm X

“But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different -…

Karen Thompson Walker

“How someone wants to explain catastrophe isn't important--that's what I know now. When shit happens, it doesn't really matter what asshole is responsible.”

Catherine Lacey