GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Playwright, critic, and political activist
BACKGROUND
George Bernard Shaw was born July 26, 1856 in Dublin Ireland to George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw.[1] Though technically belonging to the landed Irish gentry, Bernard Shaw grew up poor.[2] George’s mother was a musician and a singer and greatly influenced him throughout his childhood.[3] Shaw credits his mother for cultivating his social consciousness, individualism, and self-expressionism.[4] With her guidance, he learned to rebel against repression. In regards to his early education Shaw said, “The word education brought to my mind four successive schools where my parents got me out of the way for half the day. In these crèches (daycare) – for that is exactly what they were – I learned nothing. How could I have been such a sheep as to go to them… They did me a great deal of harm, and no good whatever.” [5] In 1976, right before Shaw turned 20, he moved to London to live with his mother who had moved there three years earlier to pursue her music career. During his first few years in London, Shaw tried numerous professions but was met with failure after failure. First he tried musical criticism, then writing blank verse, and then he tried to become a novelist, all of which did not go anywhere.[6] It wasn’t until he started to become involved in the academic and political discourse of the time that Shaw began to find his way. He joined groups such as the Zeletical Society, a debate group, where he met other activists such as Sydney and Beatrice Webb.[7] He soaked in as much knowledge as he could, reading books like Marx’s Capital and listening to speakers such as Henry George.[8] In 1884, Shaw, with the help of the two Webbs, founded the Fabian society which was a socialist organization.[9] The purpose of the organization was to create political and social reform through gradual change via established channels of power.[10] As the society grew, it had significant impact on English politics. Because of his superior writing skills, Shaw became the most prominent member of this organization. With all this writing for the Fabian Society, Shaw was discovered by drama critic William Archer who employed him as a critic starting in 1885.[11] Shaw spent time as an art critic, a music critic, and finally a theater critic. It was at this time that he also began writing plays and studying the work of Henrik Ibsen. He gave a speech in 1890 to the Fabian society where he revealed his admiration but also criticism of Ibsen and in 1891 he wrote The Quintessence of Ibsenism.[12] In 1892, Shaw publishes his first play Widower’s Houses and after that the steam of plays and other writings from Shaw was unstoppable.[13] In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend who was a wealthy Irish heiress and a fellow Fabian. Shaw’s popularity and influence grows and in 1925 he is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. However, the Nobel Prize was not the first honor he had been offered but it was one of the first that he accepted.[14] Over a period of nearly six decades, Shaw wrote fifty one play though his contemporaries saw him as less of a dramatist and more as a moral and political agitator.[15] George Bernard Shaw died in 1950 at ninety-five years old but his legacy lives on in theater, politics, critique, and philosophy.
ENGLISH POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
George Bernard Shaw lived during the Victorian and Georgian era which was a time filled with dramatic changes and radical ideas. With Queen Victoria came the immense spread of the British Empire which by the end of the 19th century contained one-quarter of the world’s population. London was the center of this massive empire and the most important trade city, filled with extravagant consumerism.[1] While the early 19th century was centered around the idea of nationalism this ideology shifted to ‘New Imperialism’ in the second half of the century.[2] There were multiple influential political parties during this time but all had similar goals of domestic reform. The horrible conditions of laborers were becoming more and more evident and all parties agreed that change needed to happen. The Tories supported paternalistic aide while the Liberals focused on the welfare of the empire as a whole.[3] There was also the Radical Left who argued for decreasing the military and stopping Imperialism.[4] There was also conflict at the time over the question of Irish Home Rule.[5] Between 1876 and 1950, Ireland underwent radical demographic and political change. This was due to the rise of urban populations especially in the form of the politically active Catholic middle class.[6] The conflict over Irish independence was so aggressive that a full outbreak of war between England and Ireland occurred in 1919 and lasted until 1921.[7] Another influential event was World War I. The Great War started on July 28th, 1914 and ended November 11th, 1918. After the War, the Great Depression hit England and caused major declines in trade, production, and employment. In 1939, Britain declared war on Germany which marked the beginning of World War II which then lasted until 1845. All of these major political events were marked by social changes such as Women’s suffrage in 1928. All of these events had a major influence on George Bernard Shaw’s writings.
SHAVIANISM
George Bernard Shaw had a very complex and dynamic personal philosophy. He was often accused of being inconsistent to which he would always respond, “l’homme absurde est celui qui ne change jamais” which translates to “It is the absurd man who never changes”.[22] That is why it is important to not only study Shaw’s political and theatrical works but to analyze his actions and comments to gain a deeper understanding of the man as a whole. For example, in 1881, Shaw came down with smallpox despite being vaccinated. The facial scars that the disease left behind motivated his assertion that the medical world was driven by frauds.[23] Shaw often visited hospitals and homes of the poor and wrote of the terrible conditions of the inoculation programs as well as other government-run health programs. This is just one example of the passion that Shaw had for different causes. Archibald Henderson, a friend of Shaw's who interviewed him on multiple occasions, wrote “The subject is very unconventional and independent, especially in thought, and adaptable to people and circumstances. His will is very strong, and he is obstinate in opinion, very argumentative, dogmatic, and inconvincible.” [24] These characteristics shed light on how George Bernard Shaw became one of most influential figures of the modern era.
George Bernard Shaw was seen less as a dramatist and more as a moral and political activist.[25] When it comes to his work as a critic, he had a finger in every pie: religion, economics, politics, education, marriage, crime, the practice of medicine, and the trouble with Ireland.[26] While it would be impossible to cover his thoughts on every single one of these subjects, it is important to know that his examinations of these matters shaped the views of millions and affected policy throughout Europe. Shaw's status as a theater expert is so deeply rooted in dramaturgy that his name appears in almost every textbook on Theater, not just in relation to his own work but in relation to other playwrights. Because of this, George Bernard Shaw fundamentally changed the way dramaturges analyze theater.
SHAW'S PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES
By the middle of the 19th century, dramatic and theatrical thought and work were at a standstill. Although there were melodramas, light comedies, burlesques, and musical dramas being written and performed, none of these were revolutionary.[27] It wasn’t until 1875 that a break from the past can be seen and theater starts to transition to modern theater.[28] There were multiple movements that emerged during this time. The most influential, according to Shaw, was that of Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen started publishing plays in 1850 that were verse-dramas about Scandinavian past but after he had financially secured himself, Ibsen broke away from this safe path to pursue uncharted territory.[29] He did this by abandoning verse because he said it was unsuited to creating an illusion of reality.[30] He also changed the role of ideology in a play. Instead of having the ending match the intended ideology like in Dumas or Augier’s plays, Ibsen would write endings that contradicted the existing ideology and showed the problems within society.[31] As Ibsen worked to develop the style of realism, he abandoned asides, soliloquies, and other nonrealistic devices.[32] Ibsen believed that art should have insights and create discussion and above all, he believed that a play should be more than just entertainment.[33]
Another popular movement was French naturalism. Naturalists believed that heritage and environment played significant roles in a character’s fate.[34] This ideology stems from new scientific thought, particularly that of evolution as defined by Charles Darwin.[35] One of the primary naturalist playwrights was Emile Zola.[36] He believed that literature, which he considered plays to be a part of, must contain science.[37] He thought that dramatists should observe and record human behavior just as scientists do.[38] Where naturalism failed was with the fact that no one was writing naturalist plays, only theorizing about them.[39] There were often issues with producing naturalist plays and very few of them rose to popularity.[40] It wasn’t until the creation of the Independent Theatre in London and the Théâtre Libre in Paris that these new forms of art could be produced in the way that their author’s imagined.[41] This is because the theater focused on avoiding censorship which pushed playwrights like George Bernard Shaw to go beyond what was already written and change the style of theater.[42]
SHAW'S WORK AND INFLUENCE
George Bernard Shaw started writing plays from 1892 until his death. His plays were noticeably different from his contemporaries for multiple reasons. One difference is that he wrote primarily comic plays instead of gloomy, serious plays like his peers and predecessors.[43] This is because Shaw believed that humans were capable of improvement and therefore, happy endings.[44] These tendencies of his created the subsection of theater called ‘Problem Plays’. In these plays, Shaw would address specific issues that aroused the public conscience. An example of this is in his first play Widower’s Houses. In this play, Shaw shows the corruption embedded in landlordism by presenting the details of the real-life situation.[45] There are many references to a specific Parliamentary Blue Book, to the Royal Commission on Housing, and to the bureaucracy involved with housing.[46] He is not only extremely critical of these elements but in the end, provides a solution.[47] Through the play, he shows that society could be improved if there were elected bodies in charge of housing that could only achieve corporate goals and not the exploitation of the tenants for the landlords’ personal gain.[48] Shaw also focused on the idea of freedom of choice, contrary to realism and naturalism.[49] He also broke away from previous styles in his dialogue.[50] Shaw's characters are articulate in a way that was unlike everyday speech because his characters are used to show a point of view.[51] Shaw’s background in music also influenced his dialogue. His plays were all designed to be spoken, sometimes with specific actors in mind.[52] What makes Shaw's characters unique is that their opinions are not just decorative but instead they are backed by sincere action and feeling in the form of a perfectly natural expression. Because of this, Shaw's characters are not merely puppets of his ideology but instead have unique personalities.
Another significant aspect of Shaw’s theater was that he directed the plays he wrote. In England in the 1890s, very few dramatists directed their own plays. Shaw broke this trend, however, because he viewed the director as vital to a theatrical production.[53] Shaw recognized the importance of maintaining the original image and integrity of his own plays.[54] Because Shaw was experimenting with new types of dialogue and other devices, it was critical that every detail be exactly what he intended. Because Shaw directed his own plays, they succeeded where other realist and naturalist plays failed. Shaw championed the idea that that playwright is god and that no one except the playwright should change the play.[55] This modernist idea changed the way people thought about theater and how directors approached the production of plays. Shaw created such a specific and powerful image with each of his plays that set the tone for every playwright after.
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATIONS
Texts:
Brockett, Oscar G. History of the Theatre: Oscar G. Brockett. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991.
Dukore, Bernard F. "Bernard Shaw: The Director as Dramatist." Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 35, no. 2 (2015): 136.
Evans, Judith. The Politics and Plays of Bernard Shaw. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2003.
Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Gerould, Daniel Charles. "George Bernard Shaw's Criticism of Ibsen." Comparative Literature 15, no. 2 (1963): 130-45. doi:10.2307/1768900.
Henderson, Archibald. George Bernard Shaw His Life and Works. London: Hurst and Blackett, Limited, 1911.
Hill, Eldon Cleon. George Bernard Shaw. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Kent, Brad, ed. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW IN CONTEXT. S.l.: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2018.
Matthews, John F. George Bernard Shaw. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969
Images:
"George Bernard Shaw at His Country Home in Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, Eng., 1946." Digital image. ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Bernard-Shaw.
"Middle-aged Man with Greying Hair and Full Beard." Digital image. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#/media/File:Bernard-Shaw-ILN-1911-original.jpg.
"Shaw, George Bernard: 1856-1950." Digital image. Swisseduc.ch. https://www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/shaw_gb/.
"Shaw in 1914 Aged 57." Digital image. Wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#/media/File:George_Bernard_Shaw_notebook.jpg.
"The Tarantella Scene, A Doll's House." Digital image. 1879. A Doll's House Class PowerPoint