New Introduction XXVII

. . . instead of complying with the demands of formal

closure - the convention which would confirm the attempt
at recuperation - the play concludes with two events which
sabotage the prospect of both closure and recuperation.
(pp.202-3)

The difference between these two en tIcs, separated by

eighty years in time, is that between an ideal and a realist art.
Mr Dollimore had quoted the playwright, Bertolt Brecht,
with approval:

The bourgeois theatre's performances always aim at smooth-

ing over contradictions, at creating false harmony, at
idealization. Conditions are reported as if they could not
be otherwise; ... if there is any development it is always
steady, never by jerks; the developments always take place
within a definite framework which cannot be broken
through. None of this is like reality, so realistic theatre
must give it up.
(Appendix to the Short Organum,
Schriften 7; tr. J. Willett)

Yet Bradley was not so far apart from twentieth-century

realist and deconstructive criticism as may at first appear. His
own mind was basically sceptical, so that he was aware of
some opposing voices within the plays which, he confessed to
his readers, he could 'neither separate nor reconcile'. He
resisted easy solutions, so that, while he sought a single vi-
sion, he recognized:

Shakespeare was not attempting to justify the ways of God

to men, or to show the universe as a Divine Comedy. He
was writing tragedy, and tragedy would not be tragedy if it
were not a painful mystery. Nor can he be said even to
point distinctly, like some writers of tragedy, in any direc-
tion where a solution might lie.

He also knew: