George Bernard
Shaw (1856-1950) was a man whose impact on his generation, and the coming ones
has been indelible. Born in Dublin to a civil servant father George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly
Shaw, he grew up in
an environment of poverty. He was the
youngest child and the only son of his parents. He received an irregular
education because of his own dislike for the same. His mother was a gifted
singer and musician who learnt music from George John Vandeleur Lee who was a tenant with the Shaws since
1866.
There was a general
lack of affection between his parents. Lucinda Shaw finally left her husband and moved to London in 1872
whereas Bernard Shaw remained with his father for some time. He worked during
this period at a land agency as a clerk. Determined to become an author, he
joined his mother in London in 1876. For first three years there he allowed his
mother to support him and he concentrated on self education. British Museum
played a significant role in his education as an author and musician. He wrote
five novels between 1879 to 1883 which failed miserably. It became evident to him that he could not
succeed as a novelist.
1879 was an important
year in Shaw's life as it was at this time that he joined the Zetetical society
which was a debating club that discussed matters related to economics, science
and religion. He soon became a popular speaker at this club. And it is here
only in 1882 that he first listened to Henry George for the first time. This
lecture aroused his interest in economics and social theories. And this lecture
only encouraged him to get familiar with Das Kapital of Karl Marx . These
readings and socialist leanings of Shaw had to find a full fledged expression
in his plays.
The year 1884 is
also important in the development of Shaw's genius as he became a member of the
Fabian Society and was soon elected to the
Executive Committe. Through this platform he preached his ideas of
socialism. "Despite
his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade.
He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist,
and tentatively a playwright."
He was a noted
public figure by this time. As an author he first tasted success with Arms
and the Man (1894) although he had published Widowers' Houses
(1892) and Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893). He was highly
influenced by Henrik Ibsen and tried to
propagate his political, economic and
social ideas through his plays. Shaw called the first two plays, Widowers'
Houses
and Mrs. Warren's
Profession, as 'Unpleasant Plays' because “their dramatic power is used to force the
spectator to face unpleasant facts.” He followed these two plays with four
'pleasant plays' so that he could lure the audiences whom he had offended with
his first earlier works. These 'pleasant plays' are - Arms and the Man
(1894), Candida (performed in 1897), The Man of Destiny (1897), You
Never Can Tell (1897).
In 1901 came his
collection Three Plays for Puritans which include The Devil's
Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) and Captain
Brassbound's Conversion (1901). Other major works by Shaw include Man
and Superman (1905), John Bull’s Other Island (performed
1904), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Androcles
and the Lion (1912).
Shaw's master piece Pygmalion
came in in 1913. The play was also adapted for a film for which Shaw wrote the
screen play. He received Academy Award for the same and remains the only
person ever to have won a Nobel Prize in literature (1925) and also an Academy
award (1938).
Shaw's post WWI works
are an attempt to justify his views about the war. He condemned Britain and its
allies and held them equally culpable for the outbreak of War. His ideas earned
him the wrath of his countrymen. Heartbreak House (1920) is about
"the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for the war’s
bloodshed." Shaw wrote five plays under the collective title Back to
Methuselah (1922). Saint Joan was performed in 1923 and The
Apple Cart came after a long theatrical silence in 1929.
These are some of Shaw’s
later, minor plays - Too True to Be Good (performed
1932), On the Rocks (performed 1933), The
Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (performed 1935), Geneva (performed
1938), and In Good King Charles’s Golden Days (1939),
Farfetched Fables (performed 1950), Shakes
Versus Shav (performed 1949), and Why She Would Not (1956),
which is a fantasy with only flashes of the earlier Shaw.
Shaw retires to his
country house in Ayot St. lawrence, Hertfordshire, England after his wife's
death in 1943. He continued to write actively even during his last years and breathed
his last in 1950.
Shaw was the most
popular comic playwright of not just his times but for generations to come.
Despite his peculiar style and stagecraft, he is considered second only to
Shakespeare in English literature. He wrote serious plays about significant
issues of contemporary society. His plays encouraged intellectual debate and
discussions on many troubling issues that were either accepted as a normalcy in
society or were pushed under the carpet because of social tabboos.A zealous
literary critic, music critic, pamphleteer, dramatist, essayist, lecturer on
issues of economics, socialism and politics, and one of the most prolific
letter writer in English literature, he influenced many generations with his wit and
intelligence
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