Shaw on Shakespeare

Shaw on Shakespeare
Author: Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781557835611

(Applause Books). "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his." - From SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE Celebrated playwright, critic and essayist George Bernard Shaw was more like the Elizabethan master that he would ever admit. Both men were intristic dramatists who shared a rich and abiding respect for the stage. Shakespeare was the produce of a tempestuous and enlightening era under the reign of his patron, Queen Elizabeth I; while G.B.S. reflected the racy and risque spirt of the late 19th century as the champion of modern drama by playwrights like Ibsen, and, later, himself. Culled from Shaw's reviews, prefaces, letters to actors and critics, and other writings, SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE offers a fascinating and unforgettable portrait of the 16th century playwright by his most outspoken critic. This is a witty and provocative classic that combines Shaw's prodigious critical acumen with a superlative prose style second to none (except, perhaps, Shakespeare!).

Bernard Shaw's Book Reviews: 1884-1950

Bernard Shaw's Book Reviews: 1884-1950
Author: Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 608
Release: 1991
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780271015484

This new volume of Bernard Shaw's book reviews is a companion to Brian Tyson's previously edited collection of Shaw's earlier book reviews. Here Tyson collects seventy-three of the best remaining literary book reviews written by Shaw throughout his lifetime. Two-thirds of the reviews appear in book form for the first time, the originals residing in the archives of newspaper libraries, and only three of the remainder have been reprinted within the last twenty years. Politics feature largely in the works that Shaw reviewed: there are books of socialist theory and its practical appearance in the Soviet Union, as well as books on the individualism of J. H. Levy, the anti-socialism of Thomas McKay, and the economics of E. C. K. Gonner and Philip Wicksteed. There is often an immediacy about the books reviewed, too: discussion of books on World War I, the Soviet Revolution, women's suffrage, the British General Strike of 1926, and World War II all take place concurrently with the events. Many of the works reviewed are biographies, which give Shaw the opportunity to reveal his personal acquaintance with their subjects, including Samuel Butler, William Morris, and Dean Inge. This widely varied collection sparkles with wit and wisdom, taking us briskly through Shaw's own writing life, beginning when he was relatively unknown and concluding when he was a legend.

Shaw's Music: 1876-1890

Shaw's Music: 1876-1890
Author: Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Bodley Head
Total Pages: 960
Release: 1989-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780370312705

This is the first of three volumes of musical criticisms by Bernard Shaw reflecting his great breadth of knowledge of the works of Wagner, Bach and Mozart to more contemporary British composers such as Walton, Tippett and Britten.

Plays by George Bernard Shaw

Plays by George Bernard Shaw
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2004-08-03
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1101157666

George Bernard Shaw demanded truth and despised convention. He punctured hollow pretensions and smug prudishness—coating his criticism with ingenious and irreverent wit. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Arms and the Man, Candida, and Man and Superman, the great playwright satirizes society, military heroism, marriage, and the pursuit of man by woman. From a social, literary, and theatrical standpoint, these four plays are among the foremost dramas of the age—as intellectually stimulating as they are thoroughly enjoyable. “My way of joking is to tell the truth: It is the funniest joke in the world.”—G. B. Shaw With an Introduction by Eric Bentley and an Afterword by Norman Lloyd

Love Among The Artists

Love Among The Artists
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2012-08-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1848547323

With his inimitable wit and sparkle, George Bernard Shaw brings us the character of Owen Jack, a salty non-conformist composer said to have been suggested by Beethoven. The relations between Jack and the other wayward bohemians of the story with the more conventional socialites around them offers shrewd insight into the nature of the artistic temperament, with its needs for a kind of commitment that overrides the everyday claims of the heart. A novel which anticipated Shaw's first plays by more than ten years, LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS shows him already mocking the respectable morality of the Victorian society around him.

Maxims for Revolutionists

Maxims for Revolutionists
Author: Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2019-11-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

'Maxims for Revolutionists' by George Bernard Shaw is a brief but thought-provoking book filled with short yet powerful maxims that demand your attention. With just 20 pages, Shaw manages to pack in wisdom that will keep you meditating and reflecting for hours. Here's one of the maxims that can be found within this book's pages: "Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior."

Bernard Shaw's Novels

Bernard Shaw's Novels
Author: Richard F. Dietrich
Publisher: Florida Bernard Shaw
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780813014265

In the five novels he wrote before he became the great Irish playwright everyone knows, George Bernard Shaw worked out the basic design of his public future, fulfilling his own dictum that "no man is real until he has been transmuted into a work of art." R. F. Dietrich stresses Shaw's psychic transformation from a shy, priggish, inept Shelleyan intellectual to an efficient, extroverted, ironically devilish statesman-poet. Amid the decay and death of the old Victorian father figures, the young genius discovers, as James Joyce did later, that he must commit autogenesis and re-create himself as his own authority figure. In the moral and spiritual emptiness of the modern world, Shaw engendered the inherently moral "Superman," who would triumph over circumstances by being a master rather than a slave of reality. Reflecting contemporary critical theory and advances in Shaw studies, this work is a major overhaul of Dietrich's earlier study of Shaw's transformation, going beyond the merely biographical to examine the psychological and symbolic significance of Shaw's fiction. It will be of interest not only to Shaw scholars but to historians of the novel (the Victorian novel in particular), to historians of culture, and to those interested in the psychology and biography of authors and public figures.

The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God

The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2024-10-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1843913461

So controversial was Black Girl when it first appeared in 1932 that it provoked public outcry with Shaw decried as a blasphemer. Today, it remains a surprisingly irreverent depiction of the universal search for God. Dissatisfied with the teachings of respectable white missionaries, an African girl embarks upon her own quest for God and Truth. Journeying through the forest, she encounters various religious figures, each one seeking to convert her to their own brand of faith. This brilliantly sardonic allegory showcases some of Shaw's most unorthodox thoughts on religion and race. George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) is best known for his dramatic works, of which Pygmalion is the most famous.