Kids Free Souls - Brainy Stuff - Literature

"We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so."
Alexander Pope (Essay on Criticism)

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Born: July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland

Died: November 2, 1950, in Ayot, St. Laurence, England

Shaw was an Irish author and socialist best known for his plays which were marked by experimental techniques and social criticism. Born in Ireland, Shaw grew up in a Protestant household. From his father, a clerk in the government, he inherited a sense of humor. From his mother, a professional singer, he gained appreciation for music, and a love of literature.

Shaw left school at age fifteen and went to worked for an estate agent, collecting rent. Although he was paid a pittance it allowed him time to read and write. His first published work was a letter to the editor on the topic of American evangelists in 1875. He mused that religion, and in particular sudden conversions, did little to better people's lives.

Eager for a better life he followed his mother, who had left his father, to London in 1876. His departure from Ireland was purely physical, for although he never returned, his writings indicated he often turned to the beauty and the violence of the island for inspiration.

In London he became interested then active in socialism after hearing a speech by Henry George, a socialist and political-economist. He was also inspired by the writings of Marx and Engels. He became a socialist in 1882, joined the Fabian Society in 1884, and sat on the executive committee for many years. Shaw was a pamphleteer and spoke at busy street corners delivering the message of socialism. It is estimated that he delivered more than one thousand speeches, which gave him practical knowledge about what would grab people's attention and what would entertain them long enough to get a message across.

During the mid-1880s he stared a friendship with William Archer. Brought together by a love of the writer Ibsen, Archer and Shaw often talked of collaborating on a play, but they never did. It was Shaw who emulated the Scandinavian with the play The Quintessence of Ibsenism produced in 1891. Archer did help Shaw find work as a journalist. As a journalist, Shaw used the pen name Corno di Bassetto. He worked for The Star during 1888 to 1890 and became a recognized music critic. Shaw then became the drama critic for The Saturday Review between 1895 and 1898, using his initials G.B.S. in the byline. His articles from this period were bundled into Our Theater in the Nineties, a three volume collection published in 1932.

Shaw wrote a number of novels while in London. Although they were not commercially successful they were a forecast of strong political and social writings to follow. His first published novel was Cashel Byron's Profession in 1886. An Unsocial Socialist followed in 1887 and before the end of his career he would return to novel writing, publishing The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, a socio-political parable, in 1932.

After a false start as a novelist, Shaw turned to writing drama. This early period is considered, by some, an extension of his newspaper days where there is a heavy emphasis on social and artistic criticism, but not as much thought to the dramatic text. Many of his early plays were considered too strong to initially garner the approval of the censors. Early plays that had later productions were Mrs. Warren Profession written in 1893, performed privately in 1902, publicly in New York in 1905 and in England in 1924. And The Philanderer which was written in 1893, and performed in 1905. Shaw's first play that was staged in England was Arms of the Man in 1894.

Shaw married a wealthy woman, Charlotte Payne- Townsend, in 1897, a year in which he also dedicated his energies to the art of producing theater. Successful productions which followed were Candida in 1897, The Devil's Disciple in 1897, The Man of Destiny in 1897, You Can Never Tell in 1899 and Captain Brassbound's Conversation in 1900. These plays have been grouped together because they show emerging themes which Shaw continued to develop throughout his career. In them Shaw attacks routine, the customs and manners of the petty bourgeois, and praises those who set out on their own course and hold true to a code that defies accepted standards. To the public he was known as the "enfant terrible." Shaw pulled audiences into topical, political debates and demanded them to think intelligently about issues.

Shaw became popular through the productions of his plays at the Royal Court Theater between 1904-1907. One such play was Man and Superman, first performed at the Royal Court Theater in 1905 and published in 1908. The title is an allusion to the work of the philosopher Nietzsche who thought man could obtain a higher state if he threw away accepted morals doled out by the church and state. In this play Shaw seeks a new religion or ethic and expounds on the joy of creative evolution. He believed in a "life force," the need for geniuses to drive society to new levels.

Other plays produced at the Royal Court Theater by Harley Granville-Barker and J.E. Vedrenne were John Bull's Other Island in 1904, How He Lied to Her Husband in 1904, Major Barbara in 1905 and Doctor's Dilemma in 1906. In 1909 Shaw came under scrutiny from the censorship board again which denounced all his plays as immoral. His 1913 play Pygmalion is considered his comic masterpiece.

Shaw's later works such as Heartbreak House in 1920, Back to Methuselah in 1922, and Saint Joan in 1923 were considered revolutionary in form and technique and influenced the production of theater in the 1920s. Later works, such as The Apple Cart staged in 1929, have not been presented with the same enthusiasm as his earlier works, perhaps because of their experimental dramatic nature.

Later in life he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, but gave the money to the Anglo -Swedish Literary Foundation, a organization dedicated to the study and promotion of Nordic authors. With some of his earnings, he indulged in travel, first to Russia in 1931, then around the world with his wife in 1932.

Shaw continued to write on a number of social, political and ethical issues such as How to Settle the Irish Question in 1917, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism in 1928 and Everybody's Political What's What in 1944. Shaw has been criticized for being a teacher and a propagandist who used the theater only to send a message. However, he has surpassed his contemporaries such as Sheridan and Oscar Wilde, and created art that is presented and enjoyed today.

Shaw, who was a strict vegetarian and did not drink alcohol, coffee or tea, lived to be ninety-four.

Major Works

Harley Granville-Barker, George Bernard Shaw's friend produced 11 of his plays in less than three years at the Royal Court Theatre. These included:

Candida (1895)
The Devil's Disciple (1897)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)
Man and Superman (1903)

This last play contains the scene 'Don Juan in Hell' which is often performed as a separate work.

Man and Superman introduced Shaw's theory of what he called the 'life force' - To George, the life force was the energy that dominates people biologically. However, when harnessed by human will, the life force can lead to a higher, more creative existence. This concept is central to Shaw's most ambitious play, the five part Back to Methuselah (1918-1920) a fable that traces the entire history of humanity.

Saint Joan (1923), a drama about the individual in conflict with historical necessity, is widely regarded as Shaw's masterpiece. But some critics prefer Pygmalion (1912). This ironic Cinderella story describes how a professor of phonetics (speech sounds) demonstrates the absurdity of class distinctions by changing an ignorant Cockney girl into a counterfeit aristocrat by changing her speech. The play was adapted into the musical 'My Fair Lady' (1956). Shaw's other plays include Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Androcles and the Lion (1913), and Heartbreak House (1919)