Transcription
[Music] Video on George Bernard Shaw: Very Important Writer
Born in 1856, Bernard Shaw was one year junior to Joseph Conrad. Bernard Shaw, as we know, was Irish. Irish playwrights, but he originally started with novels that were failures. He became a playwright. Before that, he was also a critic, pamphleteer, essayist. He wrote a large number of plays—some 60 plays—and the prefaces of these plays are also very important. He was a very sharp critic. We know that, right? Lots of criticisms, sharp comments that he made about people and situations. He advocated vegetarianism. Vegetarianism was something that everybody advocated in the west in those times. A very famous writer who was a vegetarian is P.B. Shelley. So Shaw was also an advocate of vegetarianism. He was involved in Fabian socialism. Socialism was becoming very popular, uh, in the beginning of the 20th century, and Shaw was involved in it. Did you know that he wrote 250,000 letters? My god! We must have sent more WhatsApp messages than that. Anyway, he was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
Shaw's Works
We have to now talk about Shaw's works. All of you know that Shaw was influenced by Henrik Ibsen. At the time, in the Victorian period when Shaw is writing, there was a lot of melodrama on the Victorian stage. Proper drama, in the literary sense, was not there. Melodrama. It was Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde who changed this trend. The Victorian plays were very artificial, conventional. Shaw and Oscar Wilde started the discussion of ideas, social criticism, on the Victorian stage and later 20th-century stage. Do you know the names of the major figures in drama at this time? I have included them in the encyclopedia, in the second volume. Encyclopedia. Also, I have talked about them: A.W. Pinero, H.A. Jones, Henry Arthur Jones. They tried to reform drama, but to no avail. It was not successful. It was the drama of Bernard Shaw and Ibsen that became, you know, a new trend on the English stage. Remember Ibsen and Henrik Ibsen: *A Doll's House*, *Ghosts*, etc., were performed in England. Henry James was involved with this performance. Shaw wrote about Ibsen: *The Quintessence of Ibsenism*, published in 1890.
Shaw's Major Concerns
Now, before we talk about the plays, would you like to know what are the major concerns in Shaw's plays? Shall I help you? Well, all of Shaw's plays were social realism plays, plays of social realism. He depicted social problems with the vein of comedy. Okay. He was angry with the exploitation of the working class, and he was a Fabian socialist, and old socialist at this time. Remember, did you watch the video on H.G. Wells? Let me find out the truth. If you are watching, you would know that H.G. Wells wrote *The New Machiavelli*, a play where H.G. Wells depicted Beatrice and Sidney Webb, the founders of Fabian socialism. All right. Now, what is Fabian socialism? You are wondering what is Fabian socialism. Fabian socialism is achieving the ends of socialism by peaceful means; achieving a gradual spread of socialism, equality of people, no private property, all this by peaceful means. Okay. Now, Shaw became a famous writer in the 1980s, 90s, and 20th century, and do you know he was the only man to win an Oscar and a Nobel Prize?
Shaw's Plays
Shaw's *Pygmalion*, a 1913 play, *Pygmalion*, was turned into the movie *Pygmalion* in the 1930s. *Pygmalion*, the movie, got an Oscar. Shaw got an Oscar for the best screenplay. Later, in the 1950s, *Pygmalion* turned into a musical, *My Fair Lady*. That is the name of the musical. Now, I have to tell you about his plays. That is what you're waiting for. Shaw wrote some novels before he wrote plays, that you know. His first successful play was *Widowers' Houses*. *Widowers' Houses* is a play that deals with slum landlordism. *Mrs. Warren's Profession* came after this. *Mrs. Warren's Profession* is a play about Mrs. Kitty Warren, who was once upon a time a prostitute. She is now running a brothel. Her daughter, Vivie—rather, her daughter, Vivie—is a mathematician. She is interested in a career. She is a new woman. Vivie comes to know about her mother's former life, and Vivie is shocked. So this mother-daughter conflict, as a result of prostitution, is the theme, and Shaw is looking at prostitution from a very unconventional perspective. Shaw is saying that prostitution is a social vice engendered by the society; the men engaged in prostitution are also creating it. Of course, it is not the woman who should be blamed alone. That idea is very important, isn't it? And Shaw said it in his 1893 play, *Mrs. Warren's Profession*.
In 1894 came *Arms and the Man*. *Arms* means weapons. Weapons. It is about war. *Arms and the Man* is a play about war. It is—Shaw is an iconoclastic playwright. It is a play that makes fun of war. It is a play that makes fun of heroism. Serbia and Bulgaria are—Tischenju—fighting, Eastern European countries, and in Bulgaria there is a woman, Raina. Raina is the daughter of Major Petkoff, and she is betrothed to the hero, Sergius Saranoff. She is so romantic, believing in war. One day—did you know what happened?—one day into Raina's bedroom jumped a Serbian mercenary soldier. He's actually Swiss, Bluntschli. Bluntschli looks like a coward. He doesn't have cartridges; he is carrying chocolate creams instead of cartridges. Can you believe that? Can anybody win a war with chocolate creams? And our Raina learns that war has a different side. Later on, when Sergius Saranoff comes, we know, we understand that he's a flirt, that he doesn't love Raina properly; he's not a genuine guy. And Major Petkoff and Sergius Saranoff do not know much about war either. It is Bluntschli, the mercenary soldier, who is helping these people. Bluntschli, even though he looks like a coward, he is very clever. Finally, at the end of the play, Raina is going to marry Bluntschli, not Sergius. Did you like that, *Arms and the Man*? That title is a subversion of "Arms and the man I sing," opening up a need by Virgil. In Virgil, arms are war and heroism are all glorified; it is celebrated. But in Bernard Shaw's play, he is making fun of war and heroism, as well as romance. Did you like that?
Then there is a play, *Candida*, a mystery. It's a satire; there is no mystery there. James Morell is a very clever public figure; he's a clergyman, and he is very good at everything. He manages his house also very well. His wife, Candida, has gone somewhere, and she's coming back with an 18-year-old man, Eugene Marchbanks. And Eugene Marchbanks understands that James Morell might look very apparently great in public life, but Candida doesn't love him that much, probably. Eugene Marchbanks loves Candida. He tells James Morell, and James Morell is shocked. And that is when Candida is asked to choose between the two men. What? Candida is furious, and she tells them, "I'm choosing the weaker of the two. I'm choosing my husband because you—your husband—your greatness, your popularity, your success as a man and as a public figure depended on my being your housekeeper and nurse and mother, and I managed everything." You know, in those days women were not given any recognition or acceptance for running the family. The same thing happens in the case of Nora Helmer in *A Doll's House*. So women were not considered an equal partner in those days. That is why Candida speaks out against it. Today we have discussions on whether women should be paid for housework, isn't it? Such discussions are also there. So that is *Candida*. This is a 19th-century play; amazing play, isn't it?
The next is *The Devil's Disciple*, *Man and Superman*. *Man and Superman* is very famous. *Man and Superman* is about life force. The heroine, Ann Whitefield, is a new woman. When her father dies, Mr. Whitefield, the daughter is asked to be in the care of Roebuck Ramsden, a venerable old man, a very traditional, conservative man; and Jack Tanner, who is an anarchist. Jack Tanner is an anarchist, and he's compared to Don Juan. There is the third act of this play called *Don Juan in Hell*, Don Juan. So Ann Whitefield realizes that Jack Tanner is the future. "I want him; I should marry him because then a new woman marrying an anarchist would lead to a generation of supermen, Ubermensch." She forces him to marry her; he actually was not willing. So this is a very funny play. All these plays of Bernard Shaw are very funny. And Tanner is unable to stand up against Ann's charm. Eventually, he marries her, uh, over her more persistent, uh, suitor, Octavius Robinson. Another character was there who was wanting to marry her.
Then there is another play, *The Doctor's Dilemma*. *The Doctor's Dilemma* is the story of Sir Colenso Ridgeon. He has developed a cure for tuberculosis, but there is one problem. Okay, what is the problem? He can treat only 10 people at a time. He has to make a choice between whether he should treat Blenkinsop, an old doctor who can save other people, or he should save Louis Dubedat, he's a playboy and the husband of Jennifer Dubedat. Jennifer Dubedat—this Colenso Ridgeon secretly loves. If Louis Dubedat dies, he will be benefited. And Louis Dubedat finally dies because he's put in the care of a funny doctor. But then the real story—it is Louis Dubedat and Jennifer were supposed to be so much in love; it looked like they are so much in love, but it seems like they were pretending. The play is against the hypocrisy of the upper class. They don't—they're not straightforward; they don't show the reality. Collins Origin is saved from Jennifer, actually. So that is another funny play. A very major play is *Pygmalion*. Probably you know that Pygmalion was a Greek sculptor, and Pygmalion, um, made a beautiful sculpture of a woman, Galatea, and the goddess Athena, I think, gave her life. Galatea comes to life, and he falls in love with her, like that. Henry Higgins is taking a flower girl, Eliza, teaching her pronunciation of standard English and making her look like a duchess. She actually passes as a duchess; people think she's a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. Does good pronunciation make a duchess? That is the theme here. Does good pronunciation make a duchess? So *Pygmalion* is a story where we are questioning what is class, what do you mean by a gentleman, who is a lady, and he is making fun of the pretensions of the upper classes. This is a play that is indirectly related to *Peregrine Pickle*. There also a man is changing, transforming. Do you know who wrote *Peregrine Pickle*? *Peregrine Pickle*, a novel by Tobias Smollett. Did you like that?
Well, *Saint Joan* is what we'll talk about next. Just before he got the Nobel Prize in 1923, he wrote *Saint Joan*. In 1925 he got the Nobel Prize. *Saint Joan* is Joan of Arc. Remember, this is a play set in 15th-century France, and after that in England, and then in the dream of a king also. So all these are their settings in the 15th century. A peasant girl, Joan, heard some voices, probably of God, which prompted her to go and ask the French king to give her an army because in the 100 Years War she wanted to fight against the English. At first she doesn't get anything, but then she is given the army. The French were losing at that time, and then, oh my god, in the siege of Orleans, in the battle of Orleans, Joan of Arc wins the battle against the English, and she wins a few other battles also. You know, the men in the army did not like that. The French, as well as English men, went to the church, proved that she is probably possessed by the devil. And *Saint Joan* was excommunicated, burned at the stake for the suspicion that she is in conjunction with the devil; she is in collaboration with the devil. She dies, and then after some years she is acquitted, and then in the 20th century she is given sainthood. Joan appears in the dream of the French king and questions everybody. "Oh, you have made me a saint; what do I gain from it? Can you give me back my life? Can you give me back what I have lost?" The men have no reply; they just leave. So humanity is never quite ready for its saints. Do you understand? That is the story of *Saint Joan*.
Now there are many more plays; 60 plays. *The Apple Cart* is based on democracy. King Magnus is cleverly defeating the prime minister. The prime minister wants democracy; he wants to stand against the king and depose the king. The king says, "Good, I am willing to take part in the elections; I will be a candidate." It is obvious that he will win because he is a great king. So democracy is not tyranny; it is not tyranny of the people. Even a king can be a good ruler if he gives priority to the people, which the prime minister is not doing, but the king is doing. Then there is *Major Barbara*. *Major Barbara* is about charity. It is about—there is a Salvation Army worker, Barbara, who is the protagonist. It is about whether people engaged in war, making ammunition, etc., are they good people? Can they do charity? It is about money; it is about, uh, moral and ethical issues related to war and charity. These are the important plays of Bernard Shaw. Are you interested in knowing what Shaw's novels are? *Irrationality*, *Immaturity*, *Love Among the Artists*. These are some of the major novels of Bernard Shaw. Shaw has also written short stories: *The Black Girl in Search of God* and some lesser tales. He has written—his short stories could also be important.
Summary of Bernard Shaw's Plays
Now let me summarize about the plays of Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw was an iconoclast. What do you mean by that? He broke idols; he broke the expectations of the society; he broke expected values and perceptions. Wrote drama of ideas, which were also called problem plays, also written by Ibsen. He took up moral issues, social issues of morality from the society, discussed them, and very importantly, his characters would emerge as mouthpieces. He would also try to solve some of these problems; he would try to give some solutions also. So drama of ideas transformed the Victorian stage and 20th-century stage. He was an Irishman. He lived at a time when two other Irishmen were also there. I will talk about them in another video: J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey. Make sure you watch that video, please, because they are very important playwrights. And Bernard Shaw wrote with realism and satire. He made his stark social themes palatable with humor. And these discussion plays had long discussions in the preface itself. The preface or the prologue to the plays were also very important. Shaw dissected the 20th-century society, especially the upper classes, and he depicted class struggle between upper and lower classes. That is a very important theme in Bernard Shaw. So he became a very major writer. He lived a very pretty long life. Do you know Shaw lived from 1856 to 1950? Wow! That's a long life. And he supported not only realism but also Ibsenite naturalism. Naturalism is a style related to realism that Ibsen introduced on the European stage. So that is all about Bernard Shaw. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you are inspired to read some of his very humorous plays. They are amazing plays. Thank you all for your continuous support and love. My love to all of you, and blessings and prayers for an amazing career. Do your work, and you will get there. I know. Bye-bye. See you soon. You.