The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1916-04-16

Then he leapcd into his coat. seized hi.
umbrella. cut his way through his ad
mirers with good HUNDRED chawp suffered
tn. addresses OF an Old Irish lady who haC
known him In childhood and was as volu
bic as himself. and finally He'd along Re
gent street like n soul in chase" hi,
tongue faying all created things. until Al
"a tube station m turned on his heel an,
vanished as II by magic. 1t was like tn,
hurry Of tho wind. Keen as n razor. DIR,
and whitening as the East. Mind and body
alike 4. II ea!!:p. trained down to the las
ounce. lie IL n hurricane ON two legs, O
hurricane Of wrath. flashing through ouI
jerry built society. lie is the lash lait
across the back of his generation. II,
whips us with the scorpions of his bite
pen. and we are grateful. He tiings hi,
whitening gibcs Ia our faces and we laugh
He lampocns us in plays and We fight al
the pay box. We love him as Bill sikes'i
dog loved that hero-bccause he heats us.
Shaw Is Swift. without any OF
Swift's morbid melancholy. He is In
direct. line from Voitaire and Heinc, ant
according to NJ. Hamon ne wears the
mantle Of Moliere. He is not an ideal.
list; he believes in money as thi.
whole generation has believed in II:
only the generation has hidden tn,
belief and disguised Il. whereas shaw
comes out openly and says: money
is the most important thing In the
world. Money represents health
strength. honor, generosity and beauty
as undeniably as the want Of II repre-.
sents weakness. disgrace, meanness
and ugliness. Flee from SIM says the
preacher. Flee from poverty, which Ia
the root Of SIM"
NJ. Hamon was chosen by Shaw him.
self to translate his plays into French
In February. 1909, NJ. Hamon was
permitted to give a course Of ter
lectures on Shaw at the Sorbonne
The volume before us contains six al
these lectures. dealing largely with
Shaw the man. his dramatic method
his relation to the dramatic critics
the technique Of the modern drama
the nature of dramatic art and the
parallelism between the drama OF
Shaw and that OF the GrRco-Roman
drama, the medieval. drama. the drama
Of Moliere and the drama Of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
with some general considerations or
dramatic art as exemplifed In Shaw.
work. Should this volume achieve It's
purpose the author promises another
volume containing the matter Of his
remaining -four lectures on the ethic
and metaphysic of Shaw.
The present work is the most con-
scientious and learned analysis OF
Shaw's technique that has been pub
lished. Fol critics in general have no;
quite digested the fact yet that a man
may jest in terrible earnest.
To turn to the chapter on Shaw's
relation to dramatic art in general
NJ. Hamon first points out that Shaw's
drama Is a drama Of ideas and not OF
incident. We all know the crude
Laughter who thinks It funny to see
a fellow mortal stumble and fall down,
We remember the introduction Of in
sanity on the E~lizabethan stage as a
motif for laughter and Of drunkenness
In the modern farce. Shaw's comedy
is on another plane altogether. He
makes us laugh at muddieheadedness
and hypocrisy. 1t is philosophic In
that it deals with the general rather
than the peculiar and aims at show
ing the connection existing between
things which i'm real life seem separate
and unrelated. The material action
is always subordinated TO the intel
lectual action. Hence, of necessity. .he
play frequently becomes n dialogue,
a dissertation, even II debate. His
plays exercise "A moralizing influence,
for in them we see ourselves. our
foibles and frailties laid bare: in them
we have "an indirect discourse by a
number of characters who converse
with n another in order TO convey
ii meaning to the public" as Deschanel
said of Aris,ophanes. The comedies
do not deal with insanity. drunken
ness or physical awkwardness: nor yet
do they deal with the great triangular
problem and romantic love. Mr.. Pi-
ZERO still has that subject to himself.
When Shaw does deal with sexual at
traction. as in Man and Superman.'
"Misalliance." &C, he d!vests Il of Ill
romantic glamour and convention and
SET II down az badly as did Walt
Whitman as the parental instinct. nr
in Shaw's W words. the life force
sex attraction never monopolizos
ShawS stage more IMAM II docs .he
stag OF me ioh''ch'' social phiio-
sophlc' literary unes'ions M III ms
oraiha as 'hey MI III hh'' rs 'n's
o All else 'hat mas maze ms 'ecn-
n'que seem new ana unprecedented
once more the strange th'ng o MN
Is that ne renects 'he wnoie or NE as
IL Is ana IL becomes the S'ra"ses' '"i"s
IN the world