George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is one of the world's greatest
literary figures. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he left school at
fourteen and in 1876 went to London, where he began his literary
career with a series of unsuccessful novels. In 1884 he became a
founder of the Fabian Society, the famous British socialist
organization. After becoming a reviewer and drama critic, he
published a study of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1891
and became determined to create plays as he felt Ibsen did- to
shake audiences out of their moral complacency and to attack social
problems. However, Shaw was an irrepressible wit, and his plays are
as entertaining as they are socially provocative. Basically shy,
Shaw created a public persona for himself- G.B.S., a bearded
eccentric, crusading social critic, antivivisectionist, language
reformer, strict vegetarian, and renowned public speaker. The
author of fifty-three plays, hundreds of essays, reviews, and
letters, and several books, Shaw is best known forWidowers'
Houses,Mrs. Warren's Profession,Arms and the Man,Caesar and
Cleopatra,Man and Superman,Major Barbara,Pygmalion,Heartbreak
House, andSaint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 1925.
Peter Gahanis a writer and lecturer specializing in
psychoanalytical theory in film and literature.Originally from
Ireland, Gahan now resides in California.
By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“Candida probably deserves to be called Shaw’s
masterpiece.” —Peter Gahan, from the Introduction
“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between
truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social
maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but
his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas
Mann
“Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he
attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles,
questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And
he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe
from him.” —Michael Holroyd
“In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian
wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our
national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times
“He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal
genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the
shade.” —The Independent
“His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every
issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity,
but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail
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