Born in Dublin in 1856, Shaw lived for nearly a century, distinguishing himself as a dramatist, a literary critic, and a social observer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. Shaw had a lifelong fascination with chiasmus. But it is equally true that no man is a valet to his hero. This intriguing observation shows up in one of Shaw's earliest novels, The Irrational Knot , originally written in 1880 but not published until years later.
Most men begin to go to the theatre when they arrive at the stage of having . . .
Shaw was fond of reversing the words of other writers. The play is Shaw's re-telling of the Don Juan story, and the hero is a witty ideologue named John Tanner. Here, Tanner chiastically alters Descartes' famous maxim. In the play, Tanner is the author of The Revolutionist's Handbook . To add a touch of verisimilitude to the play, Shaw included the Handbook in full as an appendix to the play.