Analysis of the Social Context of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw Author Exact author Home » Literature » Fiction » Analysis of the Social Context of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw Analysis of the Social Context of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Class and Social Critique in “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw • The Economics of Socialism George Bernard Shaw wrote Arms and the Man in 1893 during the Victorian era when most plays were lighter dramas or comedies in the vein of The Importance of Being Earnest, which was a play about manners and other Victorian conventions. Still, in many ways, Arms and the Man, despite some of its themes, is a perfect example of Victorian literature . The play opened to the British public in 1894 to mixed reviews and was one of the plays included in the Plays Pleasant Volume which included a few of Shaw’s other, less popular works including “You Never Can Tell.” What is most interesting about Arms and the Man is that, although it is a comedy, it deals with several political and social themes covertly.

Ideas such as the idealism behind war and the romanticism of love are attacked through satire and even more importantly, issues of class are brought to the forefront. Shaw was an avid socialist and had a number of beliefs about class that are appropriate to the historical situation in Europe. At the time the play was performed, Britain was experiencing a number of significant social and political changes as issues of class were coming to the forefront of national debates. The idea of class struggle is at the heart of “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw but instead of making the reader or viewer keenly aware of them, he slips in a number of thought-provoking lines and makes one think about these issues after the laughter has faded. Unlike other plays of the time,Arms and the Man did not seek to merely entertain an audience with polite humor. Instead, it sought to expose some of the most pressing issues of the day in a palatable format—the comedy. This is a trademark feature of Shaw’s plays and he once wrote, “What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods” (Peters 109).

In other words, George Bernard Shaw thought that there was no sense in writing something for mere entertainment, what he wrote had to serve a higher purpose and encourage people to think rather to sit and be content to be entertained. At the time George Bernard Shaw wrote the Arms and the Man there were a number of class struggles taking place in Britain as a new wave of socialist ideology was taking hold. Up until this point, workers in Britain were often paid low wages and offered little security as their country became even further industrialized . In response there were several workers movements that rose up across the nation and this drew the attention of artists and writers such as Shaw. Issues of class struggle were coming to the forefront of both political and debates in Europe and Shaw began working with the socialist cause. His feelings that the British workers were not advocating their interests enough and that the political structure in England was making it impossible for them to have any success led him to speak out publicly, often at the risk of some of his personal friendships. In addition to writing plays, Shaw became a full-time advocate of socialism and joined the Fabian Society where he wrote a number of socialist documents.

He also traveled to Russia, met with Stalin, and came home to declare how wonderfully he believed socialism was going in that country. In “Arms and the Man” George Bernard Shaw chose to set his place in the midst of a foreign war, in part so that he could offer some commentary about war. The lead female in the play, much like English audiences of the time, is sucked into the idea of the war hero and finds it difficult to think that war is anything except not glamorous. Notions of love and war as well as class are turned upside down and the reader is forced to confront them just as British playgoers of the time would eventually have to face these issues when the First World War finally came around over a decade later. At this time though, war was still a vague enough notion that it could be romanticized and this is part of the criticism George Bernard Shaw offers in the play Arms and the Man . In addition to this is his commentary about class which is the most important in terms of the social context of this play. “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw occurs during the Serbo-Bulgarian War in 1885.

She is supposed to marry one of the heroes of the war who she thinks of in terms of the idealized version of soldiers many British held during this pre-World War I era. The peace of the beginning scenes is interrupted with the arrival of a Swiss soldier in Raina’s bedroom asking for a safe place to hide. Raina offers him refuge and laughs because he does not carry guns or ammunition but chocolate instead. As the play progresses, Raina eventually begins to understand that her betrothed does not fit into the same heroic image she has always had and instead begins to fall in love with the Swiss soldier. By the end of the play “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw she finally declares her love for the soldier and the story ends happily for nearly everyone. What is missing from this short synopsis is the way that George Bernard Shaw addresses the important social issue of class during this time. Throughout “Arms and the Man” George Bernard Shaw he constantly but with subtlety makes a number of important statements about his political and social beliefs about society and class that make reference to the social context of this play—Victorian England.

Throughout “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw, slight variances are used in the speech of the characters to indicate class distinctions. It is clear that Shaw, a noted socialist , has a great deal of concern about class issues and instead of making the reader keenly aware of these notions through any direct mention, he uses their dialogue as well as cues within the setting to reveal these elements. “Despite the prominence of debate and speechmaking in his plays, one sometimes forgets that before Shaw-the-playwright came Shaw-the-debater and public speaker. All were platform spellbinders” (Dukore 385). Part of the reason it is so easy to forget that there a number of encoded social messages within the text is because is remarkably deft at conveying injustices and problems through characterization and language. His writing style is thus very critical of the Victorian-era society yet instead of doing this overtly, he relies on gestures, dialogue, and setting to set the stage for the debate. His “public speaking” would, in this sense be limited to the voices of his characters who come from variable class backgrounds and have a system of language that is suitable for their class. Only through this mode can Shaw open a platform for class debates.

At the very beginning of “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw, the reader is already cued into the class differences that will plague the text until the end. For instance, the introduction of Raina in “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw is not one that values her inner life, but those of outer appearances, something that is of great importance to her and her family. Without dialogue, she is introduced in one of the important quotes from Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, “On the balcony, a young lady, intensely conscious of the romantic beauty of the night, and of the fact that her own youth and beauty is a part of it, is on the balcony, gazing at the snowy Balkans. She is covered by a long mantle of furs, worth, on a moderate estimate, about three times the furniture of the room” (Shaw 4). Here, it is not important who she is or what she thinks about her class position, but rather it is made clear that she is within an upper class and strives to maintain the outward appearances through her luxurious clothing while the representative items of her “inner life” (in this case her bedroom) are shoddy and unremarkable.

Without being told the first thing about this character’s thoughts, it is clear that reader should be immediately attentive to class distinctions through outward appearances. It should also be noted that this setting is beautiful, but we are not expected to focus on the beauty in a traditional way, but rather to pay attention to the social statement—that there is a woman who obviously pays more for her clothes than the upkeep of her living quarters. In the mind of one critic, “The world, as he [Shaw] looks out upon it, is a painful spectacle to his eyes. Pity and indignation move him. He is not sentimental, as some writers are, but the facts grind his soul… in a word, art has an end beyond itself; and the object of Shaw’s art in particular is to make men think, to make them uncomfortable, to convict them of sin” (Salter 446). This is an especially succinct observation in this scene since there is opportunity for sentimentality and romanticism (since she is framed by a lovely setting) but this is not enough for Shaw; he must shift the object of the reader’s gaze away from physical beauty to the darker world of class and character.

Descriptions go beyond setting as well in “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw. The class of characters is not only revealed and critiqued by the setting itself, but by the narrated actions and stage directions for particular characters. For instance, consider the graceful language and the almost fairy-tale nature of the “dance” of Raina and her fiancée as they simply sit down for dinner. The narrator states in one of the important quotes from “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw, “Sergius leads Raina forward with splendid gallantry, as if she were a queen. When they come to the table, she turns to him with a bend of the head; he bows; and thus they separate, he coming to his place, and she going behind her father’s chair” (25). This is a very detailed and complex routine these characters act out and is representative of the codified ideals of chivalric behavior typically associated with the elite. This stands in sharp constant to the plodding nature of the exchanges between Nicola and Louka, whose settings and stage directions are not filled with the same dreamy interludes.

While Sergius and Raina literally appear to dance in the aforementioned scene, the lower class scenes of the two servants are much less stunning, the narrator only stating where they are in physical space and their language being stunted and free from the dramatic connotations and Byron -like feel of the upper class characters. This same shift in possibilities, from the potential sentimentality to the social critique, is apparent in terms of language as well as setting descriptions. According to one scholar, “Characters whose impulses are conventional or traditional will use language reflecting their mechanical responses and will be satirized accordingly, while characters who posses a Shavian vitality will express that spontaneity through a freedom not only from moral and ethical formulas but from verbal convention as well” (Weintraub 215). This is apparent when contrasting two particular classes represented in the play. First of all, it should be noted that those of the lower class, especially the solider who enters Raina’s room and the servant girl Nicola are all exciting and interesting characters. They posses the “Shavian vitality” and their language is free from the ornament and needless over-romanticized talk of the upper classes.

Consider, as a comparison, the meaning that is compressed, while remaining vital when Louka scolds her servant friend, saying with “searching scorn” no less, “You have the soul of a servant, Nicola” (31). Some of the most powerful emotion in the text is present in these short but potent thesis statements. Another example of this would be when the solider tells Raina, “I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that yesterday” (14). In many ways, it seems as though these characters with clipped but highly powerful statements are much like Shaw. They are making massive overarching statements about their world without seeming to do it, as if any implied social critique might have been incidental. These short bursts of meaning for much farther to reveal genuine sentiment than Raina’s long winded proclamations of love when she confesses, breathlessly and dramatically, Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in his arms and looking into my eyes, that perhaps we only had our heroic idea because we are so find of reading Byron and Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that season at Bucharest.

Real life is so seldom like that—indeed never, as far as I knew it then” (Shaw 10). While at the end she makes a powerful statement, she is too caught up in the class-driven notions of how a lady should speak to be able to make a direct and succinct statement that has the gravity of the aforementioned quotes from the lower class characters. In sum, Shaw is not overt in his social critiques in this play. His style requires that the reader interpret not only the varied language of his characters, but of the deeper meanings behind the settings and speech. While a particular scene’s description might seem, on first glance, to offer a beautiful setting or something simple, underneath these images are deeper layers of meaning that are geared towards society. In terms of dialogue and Arms and the Man, Shaw writes his characters as complete individuals whose class and deep thoughts lay masked behind relatively simple-sounding speeches. The ultimate effect of this writing style is that the reader becomes implicated in class debates (as well as other equally prominent debates about the nature of war as well) and is left with a moving story as well as something more to consider.

In more broad terms, the play, Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw reflects some of the intense class conflicts of the day and addresses several of Shaw’s ideas about society and politics as well. Works Cited Dukore. “Agitations: Letters to the Press 1875-1950.” Theatre Journal 38.3 (1986): 385 Salter. “Mr. Bernard Shaw as a Social Critic.” International Journal of Ethics 18.4 (1908): 446 Shaw, George Bernard. Arms and the Man. New York; Dover: (1994). Peters, Sally. Bernard Shaw: The Ascent of the Superman. Yale University Press (1996). Weintraub. “Language and Laughter: Comic Diction in the Plays of Bernard Shaw.” Modern Philology68.2 (1970): 21. George Bernard Shaw Biography | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays | GradeSaver Shaw, George Bernard Biography of George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw was born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland.

His mother eventually left his father, who was an unsuccessful merchant, to teach singing lessons in London. At the age of twenty, Shaw left Dublin for London, where he wrote five novels. From an early age, Shaw identified himself as a socialist and joined the Fabian Society, a non-revolutionary Marxist group advocating for reform that would result in socialism without bloodshed. He was an extremely prolific writer who completed over fifty plays before his death of natural causes at the age of 94. Shaw began writing rather late in life, beginning with articles for a Fabian Society publication called Fabian Letters (1889). He wrote five novels, but he earned a living as a music and theater critic, advocating strongly for the music of Richard Wagner. Shaw originally tried his hand at writing plays to flesh out his criticisms of the existing British stage. Compared to the light Victorian comedies, which were the fashion, Shaw's plays were revolutionary in their seriousness and socialist themes. In 1895, Shaw founded the London School of Economics and Political Science with fellow Fabian Society members Graham Wallas, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

Several collections of his photographs and correspondences are currently housed at a library at the London School of Economics that bears Shaw's name. His earliest plays were published in a set titled Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). The Pleasant volume includes Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1893), and You Never Can Tell (1895). The Unpleasant volume includes Widower's Houses (1892), The Philanderer (1893), and Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893). The latter play describes the relationship between a prostitute and her exacting daughter, and it was banned in London for its "immorality." Shaw was a vegetarian and a teetotaler, and he was well known for his large ego. In 1898, Shaw married an Irish heiress who famously insisted on maintaining celibacy even after marriage. In 1901 he published Three Plays for Puritans, a collection that included The Devil's Disciple, a play about the American Revolution. Of his later plays, Shaw is best remembered for Saint Joan (1923) and John Bull's Other Island (1904).

Written four years after Joan of Arc was recognized as a saint, Saint Joan portrays the Frenchwoman as a stubborn individual who was ahead of her time. W. B. Yeats originally commissioned John Bull’s Other Island, a comedy about Ireland, for the opening of the National Theatre in Ireland; however, Yeats ultimately rejected the play for being too controversial. Later in life, Shaw was recognized for his talents. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Over a decade later in 1938 he earned an Academy Award for the film adaptation of Pygmalion. Twelve years after his death in 1950, The Shaw Festival was founded to present and celebrate George Bernard Shaw's plays. Today he is considered one of the English language's greatest wits, and adaptations of his plays, like My Fair Lady, are considered classic works. Introduction to Theatre -- Realism The Independent Theatre Movement Background Realism in the last half of the 19th-century began as an experiment to make theater more useful to society.

The mainstream theatre from 1859 to 1900 was still bound up in melodramas, spectacle plays (disasters, etc.), comic operas, and vaudevilles. But political eventsï¿½including attempts to reform some political systemsï¿½led to some different ways of thinking. Revolutions in Europe in 1848 showed that there was a desire for political, social, and economic reform. The many governments were frightened into promising change, but most didnï¿½t implement changes after the violence ended. Technological advances were also encouraged by industry and trade, leading to an increased belief that science could solve human problems. But the working classes still had to fight for every increase in rights: unionization and strikes became the principal weapons workers would use after the 1860sï¿½but success came only from costly work stoppages and violence. In other words there seems to be rejection of Romantic idealism; pragmatism reigned instead. The common man seemed to feel that he needed to be recognized, and people asserted themselves through action.

The Emergence of Realism 3 major developments helped lead to the emergence of realism: August Comte (1798-1857), often considered to be the "father of Sociology," developed a theory known as Positivism. Among the Comteï¿½s ideas was an encouragement for understanding the cause and effect of nature through precise observation. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published The Origin of Species in 1859, and creators a worldwide stir which exists to this day. Darwinï¿½s essential series suggested that life developed gradually from common ancestry and that life favored "survival of the fittest." The implications of Darwin's Theories were threefold: people were controlled by heredity and environment behaviors were beyond our control humanity is a natural object, rather than being above all else Karl Marx (1818-1883) in the late 1840ï¿½s espoused a political philosophy arguing against urbanization and in favor of a more equal distribution of wealth These three stated ideas that helped open the door for a type of theatre that would be different from any that had come before.

Even Richard Wagner (pronounced "Rih-Kardï¿½ Vahgï¿½-ner") (1813-1883), while rejecting contemporary trends toward realism, helps lead toward a moderate realistic theatre. Wagner wanted complete illusionism, but wanted the dramatists to be more than a recorderï¿½he wanted to be of "myth-maker." True drama, according to Wagner, should be "dipped in the magic founding of music," which allows greater control over performance than spoken drama. Wagner wanted complete control over every aspect of the production in order to get a "gesamtkunstwerk," or "master art work." Because Wagner aimed for complete illusion, even though his operas were not all realistic, many of his production practices helped lead the way for realism. For instance the auditorium was darkened, the stage was framed with a double proscenium arch, there were no side boxes and no center aisle, and all seats were equally good. Further, he forbade musicians to tune in the orchestra pit, allowed no applause or curtain calls, and strove for historical accuracy in scenery and costumes.

Therefore, even though Wagnerï¿½s operas are fantastic and mythical, his attempts at illusionism helped gain public acceptance for realism. {Top of Page} Beginnings of the Movement: Realism came about partly as a response to these new social / artistic conditions. The "movement" began in France and by 1860 had some general precepts: truth resides in material objects we perceived to all five senses; truth is verified through science the scientific methodï¿½observationï¿½would solve everything human problems were the highest were home of science Artï¿½according to the realist viewï¿½had as its purpose to better mankind. Drama was to involve the direct observation of human behavior; therefore, there was a thrust to use contemporary settings and time periods, and it was to deal with everyday life and problems as subjects. As already mentioned, realism first showed itself in staging and costuming. Three-dimensional details had been added by 1800. By 1850, theater productions used historically accurate settings and costumes and details, partly as a result of romantic ideals. But it was harder to get realism accepted widely.

The Duke of Saxe-Meiningen helped unify productions; Richard Wagner wanted theatre to fuse the emotional and the intellectual, though his operas were highly mythical and fantastic. {Top of Page} Writers of Realism In France, to Playwrights helped popularized the idea of realism but both clung to two inherent traditional morality and values: Alexandre Dumas fils (the fils stands for "son," and designates the "illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas") ï¿½ (1824-1895) His novel, Camille, was dramatized in 1849. About a "kept woman," the play was written in prose, and dealt with contemporary life. Eventually, he wrote "thesis plays," about contemporary social problems. Emile Augier (1820-1889) also wrote plays about contemporary conditions. In Norway: Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is considered to be the father of modern realistic drama. His plays attacked societyï¿½s values and dealt with unconventional subjects within the form of the well-made play (causally related).

Ibsen perfected the well-made play formula; and by using a familiar formula made his plays, with a very shocking subject matter, acceptable. He discarded soliloquies, asides, etc. Exposition in the plays was motivated, there were causally related scenes, inner psychological motivation was emphasized, the environment had an influence on charactersï¿½ personalities, and all the things characters did and all of things the characters used revealed their socio-economic milieu. He became a model for later realistic writers. Among the subjects addressed by Ibsen in his plays are: euthanasia, the role of women, war and business, and syphilis. Some of Ibsen's Plays: Ghostsï¿½1881ï¿½dealt with the concept of the sins of the father transferring to the son, resulting in syphilis. Pillars of Society ï¿½ 1877 ï¿½ dealt with war and business. Hedda Gabbler ï¿½ 1890 ï¿½ a powerful woman takes her life at the end of the play to get away from her boredom with society.

A Dollï¿½s House ï¿½ 1879 ï¿½ Nora leaves her husband Torvald and her children at the end of the play; often considered "the slam heard around the world," Noraï¿½s action must have been very shocking to the Victorian audience. Later in life, Ibsen turned to more symbolic and abstract dramas; but his "realism" affected others, and helped lead to realistic theatre, which has become, despite variations and rejections against it, the predominant form of theatre even today. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) ï¿½ in England Uncommon for his witty humor Made fun of societies notion using for the purpose of educating and changing. His plays tended to show the accepted attitude, then demolished that attitude while showing his own solutions. Arms and the Man (1894) ï¿½ about love and war and honor. Mrs. Warrenï¿½s Profession ï¿½ prostitution. Major Barbara (1905) ï¿½ a munitions manufacturer gives more to the world (jobs, etc.) while the Salvation Army only prolongs of the status quo.

Pygmalion (1913) ï¿½ shows the transforming of a flower girl into a society woman, and exposes the phoniness of society. The musical My Fair Lady was based on this play. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) ï¿½ in Russia Chekhov is known more for poetic expiration and symbolism, compelling psychological reality, people trapped in social situations, hope in hopeless situations. He claimed that he wrote comedies; others think they are sad and tragic. Characters in Chekhovï¿½s plays seem to have a fate that is a direct result of what they are. His plays have an illusion of plotlessness. The Seagull (1898). Three Sisters (1900) ï¿½ we did the show here last year; about three sisters who want to move to Moscow but never do. The Cherry Orchard (1902) Again, his realism has affected other Playwrights, as did his symbolic meanings in the texts of his plays and in the titles of his plays.

{Top of Page} Other Movements Two other "movements" that developed concurrently with realism warrant our attention, Naturalism and the Independent Theatre Movement. Each of these had an influence on the developing realist movement. Naturalism While Ibsen was perfecting realism, France was demanding a new drama based on Darwinism: all forms of life developed gradually from common ancestry, evolution of species is explained by survival of the fittest The implications of Darwinï¿½s ideas seemed to be that 1) heredity and environment control people; 2) no person is responsible, since forces are beyond control; 3) the must go to society; 4) progress is the same as improvement/evolution; it is inevitable and can be hastened by the application of the scientific method; 5) man is reduced to a natural object. France had been defeated in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, ending Napoleon IIIï¿½s empire, and making France a Republic. Attitudes shifted: the working man had few privileges, it appeared, and socialism gained support.

By 1900, every major country in Europe had a Constitution (except Russia); there was therefore a strong interest in the plight of the working class. Science and technology became major tools for dealing with contemporary problems. Naturalism became a conscious movement in France in the 1870ï¿½s; Emile Zola (1849-1902) was an admirer of Comte and an advocate of the scientific method. Literature, he felt, must become scientific or perish; it should illustrate the inevitable laws of heredity and environment or record case studies. To experiment with the same detachment as a scientist, the writer could become like a doctor (seeking the cause of disease to cure it, bringing the disease in the open to be examined), aiming to cure social ills. Zolaï¿½s first major statement came in a novel, Thèrése Raquin, which was dramatized in 1873; his preface states his views.

He also wrote a few treatises about naturalism in the theatre and in the novel: he wanted art to detect "a scrap of an existence." Even though Thèrése Raquin failed to adhere to most of the principles of naturalism, except in the setting (it was mostly a melodrama about murder and retribution), his followers were even more zealous. The most famous phrase we hear about naturalism is that it should be "a slice of life." We often tend to forget what a later French writer stated should be included with that phrase: "ï¿½ put on the stage with art." Naturalism, as it was interpreted, almost obliterated the distinction between life and art. As you can imagine, there is a serious lack of good naturalistic plays and embodying its principles, has it is virtually impossible to do. Henri Becque (1837-1899) most nearly captured the essence of naturalism in two of his plays, The Vultures (1882) and La Parisienne (1885), both of which it dealt with sordid subjects, were pessimistic and cynical, had no obvious climaxes, had no sympathetic characters, and progressed slowly to the end.

However, Becque refused to comply with suggested changes when the show was first produced in a conservative theatre, so naturalism was still not really accepted. {Top of Page} The Independent Theatre Movement It would take André Antoine and the Théâtre Libre ï¿½ the beginnings of the Independent Theatre Movement ï¿½ to make naturalism and realism more acceptable. Antoine (1858-1943) has become known as the father of naturalistic staging. He had little acting or theatre Experienceï¿½he was a clerk in a gas Co. and work in an Archer theatreï¿½and when he wanted to produce a dramatization of a Zola novel, the amateur groups refused. So he founded the Théâtre Libre (Free Theatre), first program was a success and by the end of 1887 he was famous, and worked in the theatre till 1914. The Théâtre Libre used a subscription basisï¿½productions were open only two membersï¿½so his theatre was exempt from censorship. His theatre did many plays that had been refused licenses other places (for instance, Ghosts had been banned in much of Europe).

While some of the plays tended to reverse moralityï¿½repelling many and helping to lead to the idea that naturalism was depravedï¿½key paved the way for greater freedom in established theatres. The Théâtre Libre also began producing at least one foreign work per year, introducing a world theatre to France. Antoineï¿½s production techniques were innovative. He had seen the Meiningen troupe and was influenced to produce authenticity: real beef carcasses hanging on stage; the "box set" was used so that "the fourth wall" was adhered to constantly (he popularize the terms and the ideasï¿½legend has it that he arranged rooms as they would be, and then later decided what wall to "remove"); he discouraged declamation in favor of more natural acting; replaced footlights with more natural lighting; emphasized ensemble acting; and adhered to his belief that each play had its own environment. Antoine had many problems: as actors became well-known, they left the company; his high standards left him always in debt; and his theatre did only three performances of any production. By 1894, he left the Théâtre Libre.

Eventually, he opened the Théâtre Antoine in Paris in 1897, all fully professional company, and then later became the director of all fully-modernized state-subsidized theatre. His influence was undeniable in helping the acceptance of realism/naturalism and in the development of the independent theatre movement. The Independent Theatre Movement developed in other countries as well. For instance, in Germany, many small theatres had opened up buying 1890 in Berlin, but were severely limited by censorship in their choice of plays. Most had been influenced by the Meiningen troupeï¿½some advocated realism, while others advocated severe naturalism. But these theatres lacked focus until the development of the Independent Theatre Movement. The Freie Bühne (Free Stage) was founded in Berlin and 1889. Unlike Antoineï¿½s theatre, the Freie Bühne was democratically organized, with officers and a governing council. Otto Brahm (1856-1912), a drama critic, became president and guided the group.

They gave performances on Sunday afternoons (so that professional actors could be in them), had different performers in each production, and exercised much less control over the theatrical productions. Its major contribution was performing censored plays. The theatre dissolved in 1894, and Brahm was named head of the Deutches theatre. The Freie Volksbüehne (Peopleï¿½s Theatre) was organized by socialist workers in 1890 after a ban on such organizations had been lifted. Using the Freie Bühne as it its model it produced plays on Sunday afternoons and sold its tickets keep. Shortly after that, another similar theatre was formed; both groups merged before World War I, and had a combined membership of 70,000. The Workers Theatre Movement flourished in Germany and Austria, and built a broad-based theatre audience. You can take short study quizzes based on textbook materials by going to the Student Online Learning Center page for our textbook ...

George Bernard Shaw - Biographical George Bernard Shaw The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 George Bernard Shaw Share this: George Bernard Shaw - Biographical George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic in the eighties and nineties and became a prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many pamphlets. He began his literary career as a novelist; as a fervent advocate of the new theatre of Ibsen (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage. His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Among these, Widower's Houses and Mrs. Warren's Profession savagely attack social hypocrisy, while in plays such as Arms and the Man and The Man of Destiny the criticism is less fierce.

Shaw's radical rationalism, his utter disregard of conventions, his keen dialectic interest and verbal wit often turn the stage into a forum of ideas, and nowhere more openly than in the famous discourses on the Life Force, «Don Juan in Hell», the third act of the dramatization of woman's love chase of man, Man and Superman (1903). In the plays of his later period discussion sometimes drowns the drama, in Back to Methuselah (1921), although in the same period he worked on his masterpiece Saint Joan (1923), in which he rewrites the well-known story of the French maiden and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present. Other important plays by Shaw are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a historical play filled with allusions to modern times, and Androcles and the Lion (1912), in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era.

In Major Barbara (1905), one of Shaw's most successful «discussion» plays, the audience's attention is held by the power of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political activity, not as an individual. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy the humour of which is directed at the medical profession. Candida (1898), with social attitudes toward sex relations as objects of his satire, and Pygmalion (1912), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavour. Shaw's complete works appeared in thirty-six volumes between 1930 and 1950, the year of his death.

From Nobel Lectures , Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above. George Bernard Shaw died on November 2, 1950. George Bernard Shaw - Modernism Lab Essays George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw. Source: BBC News (bbc.co.uk). Wiki Articles by Pericles Lewis The Irish-born playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the leading playwright of modern Britain, wrote frankly and satirically on political and social topics such as class, war, feminism, and the Salvation Army, in plays such as Arms and the Man (1894), Major Barbara ( 1905 ), and, most famously, Pygmalion ( 1913 ).

His work introduced the theater of ideas to the English stage; where Ibsen turned melodrama into naturalism, Shaw parodied melodrama in order to develop an intellectual comedy of manners. Like Wilde , Shaw took hypocrisy as one of his major themes. His best works combined Wilde’s wit and Ibsen’s seriousness of purpose, seeking always to reveal the bogus values of various segments of English society. Shaw left Ireland for England as a young man in 1876 and, like many other modern dramatists, wrote novels and criticism before turning to the theater. The director of the Independent Theater in London, J.T. Grein, who had produced Ibsen’s Ghosts and Zola’s Therese Raquin (1867), encouraged Shaw to start writing plays when he was almost forty. His best early plays treat contemporary social issues humorously through the satirical use of love plots and melodrama.

Although their content challenges the ruling ideologies of the late Victorian period, their form is often, as Shaw put it, “pleasant.” For example, in Arms and the Man, set during a way between Bulgaria and Serbia, a Bulgarian girl falls in love with a cowardly Swiss mercenary, “her chocolate cream soldier,” who carries chocolate instead of ammunition and conveniently inherits a fortune during the denouement. The mercenary’s cowardice and straight talk about war do little to undermine the audience’s pleasure at the well-made plot. Similarly, in Major Barbara (1905) the conflict between the idealism of the inefficient charity and the realism of the benevolent arms manufacturer is resolved by a plot twist out of Wilde that draws on and at the same time parodies the well-made play. After the turn of the century, Shaw increasingly built his still rather conventional forms around a conflict of ideas. He frequently attached long prefaces to the printed version of his plays, which were often published before they had been performed; he also took to an extreme the modern tendency to print long narrative stage directions, by which the playwright tries to indicate how the play should be acted.

Compared with the work of the German expressionists or the French surrealists, Shaw’s major work seems very traditional. The two most important examples of Shaw’s more experimental theater are Man and Superman (1903) and Heartbreak House ( 1919 ). Shaw, who was a leader of the socialist Fabian society, was also an outspoken pacifist and critic of World War I, most notably in Common Sense about the War ( 1914 ). After the war, Shaw attempted some rather grandiose experiments in representing world history on the stage, including Back to Methuselah ( 1921 ) and St. Joan ( 1923 ), a theme taken up again by Brecht in his St. Joan of the Stockyards (1932). The plays tended to become more preachy and less dramatically compelling, but Shaw remained the most important modern British dramatist of his time and defined a uniquely English form of modern drama. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 . [1] ↑ This page has been adapted from Pericles Lewis's Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge UP, 2007), p.

44, 201-3. Shaw, George Bernard | Article about Shaw, George Bernard by The Free Dictionary Shaw, George Bernard | Article about Shaw, George Bernard by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Thesaurus , Wikipedia . Shaw, George Bernard, 1856–1950, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy prefaces to Shaw's plays reveal his mastery of English prose. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Early Life and Career Born in Dublin, Shaw was the son of an unsuccessful merchant; his mother was a singer who eventually left her husband to teach singing in London. Shaw left school at 14 to work in an estate agent's office. In 1876 he went to London and for nine years was largely supported by his parents. He wrote five novels, several of them published in small socialist magazines. Shaw was himself an ardent socialist, a member of the Fabian Society Fabian Society, British socialist society.

An outgrowth of the Fellowship of the New Life (founded 1883 under the influence of Thomas Davidson), the society was developed the following year by Frank Podmore and Edward Pease. ..... Click the link for more information. , and a popular public speaker on behalf of socialism. Work as a journalist led to his becoming a music critic for the Star in 1888 and for the World in 1890; his enthusiasm for Wagner proved infectious to his readers. As drama critic for the Saturday Review after 1895, he won readers to Ibsen Ibsen, Henrik , 1828–1906, Norwegian dramatist and poet. His early years were lonely and miserable. Distressed by the consequences of his family's financial ruin and on his own at sixteen, he first was apprenticed to an apothecary. ..... Click the link for more information. ; he had already written The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891). In 1898 Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a wealthy, wellborn Irishwoman. By this time his plays were beginning to be produced.

Plays Although Shaw's plays focus on ideas and issues, they are vital and absorbing, enlivened by memorable characterizations, a brilliant command of language, and dazzling wit. His early plays were published as Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (2 vol., 1898). The "unpleasant" plays were Widower's Houses (1892), on slum landlordism; The Philanderer (written 1893, produced 1905); and Mrs. Warren's Profession (written 1893, produced 1902), a jibe at the Victorian attitude toward prostitution. The "pleasant" plays were Arms and the Man (1894), satirizing romantic attitudes toward love and war; Candida (1893); and You Never Can Tell (written 1895). In 1897 The Devil's Disciple, a play on the American Revolution, was produced with great success in New York City.

It was published in the volume Three Plays for Puritans (1901) along with Caesar and Cleopatra (1899), notable for its realistic, humorous portraits of historical figures, and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900). During the early 20th cent. Shaw wrote his greatest and most popular plays: Man and Superman (1903), in which an idealistic, cerebral man succumbs to marriage (the play contains an explicit articulation of a major Shavian theme—that man is the spiritual creator, whereas woman is the biological "life force" that must always triumph over him); Major Barbara (1905), which postulates that poverty is the cause of all evil; Androcles and the Lion (1912; a short play), a charming satire of Christianity; and Pygmalion (1913), which satirizes the English class system through the story of a cockney girl's transformation into a lady at the hands of a speech professor.

The latter has proved to be Shaw's most successful work—as a play, as a motion picture, and as the basis for the musical and film My Fair Lady (1956; 1964). Of Shaw's later plays, Saint Joan (1923) is the most memorable; it argues that Joan of Arc, a harbinger of Protestantism and nationalism, had to be killed because the world was not yet ready for her. In 1920 Shaw, much criticized for his antiwar stance, wrote Heartbreak House, a play that exposed the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for World War I. Among Shaw's other plays are John Bull's Other Island (1904), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Fanny's First Play (1911), Back to Methuselah (1922), The Apple Cart (1928), Too True to Be Good (1932), The Millionairess (1936), In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), and Buoyant Billions (1949).

Perhaps his most popular nonfiction work is The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). Bibliography See his collected plays with their prefaces, ed. by D. H. Laurence (7 vol., 1970–75); his letters, particularly those to Ellen Terry (1931), Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1952), Granville-Barker (1957), and Molly Tompkins (1960); his collected letters, ed. by D. H. Laurence (4 vol., 1965–88); his complete musical criticism, ed. by D. H. Laurence (3 vol., 1981); and his autobiography, reconstructed by S. Weintraub (2 vol., 1969–70). See also biographies by A. Henderson (3 vol., 1911–56), F. Harris (1931), H. Pearson (1942 and 1950), and M. Holroyd (4 vol. 1988–93, abr. ed.

1998); studies by E. R. Bentley (2d ed. 1967), L. Crompton (1969), M. M. Morgan (1972), M. Valency (1973), E. Bentley (1985), H. Bloom (1987), and S. Weintraub (1996); bibliography by D. H. Laurence (2 vol., 1983). Shaw, George Bernard Born July 26, 1856, in Dublin; died Nov. 2, 1950, in Ayot St. Lawrence. English playwright. Irish by birth. Shaw spent his early years in Dublin and worked as a clerk after he graduated from school in 1871. In 1876 he moved to London and devoted himself to journalism, including work as a music reviewer, and literature.

His novels The Irrational Knot (1880), Love Among the Artists (1881), and Cashel Byron’s Profession (1882) and the novel of sharp social content An Unsocial Socialist (1883, separate edition 1887; Russian translation The Amateur Socialist, 1910) were rejected by bourgeois publishers and were printed in socialist periodicals. As one of the leaders of the Fabian Society, Shaw worked for a number of years to propagate the ideas of socialism, publishing tracts, pamphlets, and books. Even in Shaw’s first literary work, his novels, the heart of his creative method was determined—the use of paradox as a means of overcoming prevailing ideologies. His first play, Widowers’ Houses (1892), caused a scandal and was unsuccessful, as was the play that followed, The Philanderer (1893). Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1894), which dealt with the theme of prostitution, was first staged in England in 1907. The difficulties with production forced Shaw to publish his plays (the press was not subjected to prior censorship). Widowers’ Houses, The Philanderer, and Mrs.

Warren’s Profession were published in a collection entitled Plays Unpleasant (1898); a second cycle, Plays Pleasant, was then published, including Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1894), The Man of Destiny (1895), and You Never Can Tell (1895). These were followed by a third cycle, Three Plays for Puritans (1901), which included The Devil’s Disciple (1896–97), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (1899). One of the founders of the modern “drama of ideas,” Shaw created a type of discussion play, in which the clash of ideas and hostile ideologies posed the most acute problems of social and personal morality. Man and Superman (1901–03), a “comedy and philosophy” by Shaw’s definition, transforms the traditional theme of Don Juan: the hero is pursued by a woman. In the interlude of this play, “Don Juan in Hell,” a strikingly forceful criticism of the vices of capitalist civilization is expressed through the mouth of the Devil.

In John Bull’s Other Island (1904), Shaw used his two main characters to contrast not only national types—the Irishman and the Englishman—but correspondingly the “romantic” and the “realist,” as Shaw interpreted them. Major Barbara (1905) contains a criticism of bourgeois philanthropy; in the play Shaw first expressed the idea that bourgeois violence must be opposed by a force that serves social progress and justice. Even in the solution of personal problems, Shaw remained a distinctly social dramatist. The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906) shows how medicine loses its humane character under bourgeois conditions; Androcles and the Lion (1913) criticizes dogmatic Christianity. Getting Married (1908), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny’s First Play (1911) are devoted to questions of family, marriage, and education. The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909) depicts the exposure of the religious sanctimoniousness of the petite bourgeoisie.

Pygmalion (1913), which deals with problems of culture based on differing speech patterns and with general spiritual development, shows the moral superiority of a girl from the lower classes over an outwardly intelligent, aristocratic professor of phonetics. Shaw responded to the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia with the grotesque farce Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress (1918), in which he spoke out very determinedly for the use of violent methods to transform society. In the play Heartbreak House (1913–19), written under the obvious influence of A. P. Chekhov, he denounces the parasitism of the ruling class, their loss of spiritual values, and the erosion of individuality of character. On the other hand, old Captain Shotover in the play sees salvation in work and in the decisive reform of the entire structure of life. Back to Methuselah (1918–20), a “metabiological” drama consisting of five parts not connected by a common plot, depicts a whimsical utopia inhabited by a race of long-livers. Saint Joan (1923) is a tragedy, the only one written by Shaw.

In his treatment of the story of Joan of Arc, Shaw introduced a new theme: the Maid’s power comes not from a psychological obsession, but from reason, which is feared equally by the French and the English. When the “danger” represented by Joan has disappeared after her execution, she is exonerated; however, no one desires that she should come back to life. After an interval of several years, Shaw returned to writing plays, startling the world with the freshness and wit of his “political extravaganzas” (so-called eccentric comedies): The Apple Cart (1929), Too True to Be Good (1931), On the Rocks (1933), The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), and Geneva (1938), as well as with the historical play Good King Charles’s Golden Days (1939) and the comedy The Millionairess (1936). The idea that capitalist society has reached an impasse and bourgeois democracy is experiencing an acute crisis runs through all of the plays; fascism is condemned in Geneva. In 1931, Shaw visited the USSR, of which he had been a friend from the first years of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The fighting spirit of the publicist was evident in his public appearances until Shaw’s last years. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1948) and Farfetched Fables (1950). Although their staging was delayed, Shaw’s plays gradually gained widespread recognition and became a major force in the literature of the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. His work bore the clear stamp of the publicist and was inspired by deep philosophical meditation on the social, cultural, and biological future of mankind. His remarkable skill turned his plays into a forum for social and philosophical discussion. Shaw’s best plays have become part of the standard repertoire of many theaters in the Soviet Union. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925. WORKS

Question: Who wrote the play Arms and the Man?
Answer: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW