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Very Short Introductions #650
George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction
George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity.
This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career.
ABOUT THE
The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career.
ABOUT THE
The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
- GenresBiographyDramaNonfiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2020
3 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 13, 2022
I'm giving this book 5 stars not because it was mind-blowing or life-changing but because it delivered exactly what it promised. As the title says, it's a very short introduction to the life and work of George Bernard Shaw. In a little over 100 pages, it went through each work chronologically, placing each within the context of Shaw's worldview as well as his development as a writer. He viewed himself primarily as a social activist, but he studied the art of playwriting from the classics, so he was someone who knew both his medium and his message. The book is perfect for an undergraduate or autodidact. It's a serious analysis, yet it's in accessible language. I'm now very intrigued by Shaw's other work. The only question is: where should I start?
July 30, 2023
Exactly what it says on the cover!
July 26, 2022
The greatest feature of the man’s life was marked by his incomparable Realism.
His realism was fundamentally poles apart from the realism of other authors in the logic that it had a productive arrangement and a penitentiary fanaticism behind it. He was a pragmatist and hard-bitten reviewer of life and traditions with an unambiguous rationale in view.
The rationale was to picture the social stupidity and iniquities with the intention of purging them. He was a realist who had the audacity to face the truth, to say publicly that establishments are neither innate nor consecrated and they are for the most part human contraptions which should not be allowed to outlive their communal efficacy.
Shaw was not only a pragmatist but also a caricaturist, and he was a caricaturist because he was an iconoclast, a breaker of idols.
His denigration of societal circumstances proceeded from a novel metaphysics. He had gone to the origins of conformist convictions and ideas and showed what the indispensable actuality behind peripheral stipulations were -- which to him were not only unreal, but merely deformations of reality.
For him, what was incorrect with society was not that there was one inequality here or another there, but in the whole understanding of the Life Force. The dissimilarity between him and other realists was in the definitive examination, not of degree but of kind, but it was so great that it should be stressed as a basis to the correct appraisement of his art and philosophy. Other realists were painters of phenomena’ while Shaw was a seeker of the realism behind phenomena.
The tome under discussion provides a handy groundwork for those discovering Shaw’s writing for the first time, on the page or on the stage, and provides an outline for further revision and deepened appreciation.
The utter wordiness and range of Shaw’s writing can at times feel intimidating; indeed, there are few writers who are so creative, so interdisciplinary, so impudent, and who lived so long.
This tome is an alternate for the experience of reading or seeing productions of Shaw’s plays nor does it offer either detailed summaries of them or a methodical, widespread biography of their author.
Rather, with numerous opportunities to come across Shaw ‘in his own words’, the author draws the inspired progression of central themes and styles over his long career. While far from thorough on its subject, this volume offers an outline of Shaw’s susceptibility as a writer and public figure so as to foster among readers and audience members greater self-assurance in joining the conversations he coordinates.
The book is organized into seven chapters: --
1) ‘GBS’
2) ‘Unpleasant’
3) ‘Pleasant’
4) ‘Puritan’
5) ‘Political’
6) ‘Extravagant’
7) ‘Farfetched’
The opening chapter, ‘“GBS”’, examines Shaw’s early years in Dublin, the forging of his professional roots in London, and the contriving of his rascally, intrepid public character.
The six residual sections are each designated with an adjective Shaw himself selected to categorize and exemplify the published versions of his plays. They each stand for top Shavian ingredients that together are always concurrently operational in Shaw’s decisive and dramaturgical performance.
Both ‘“Unpleasant”’ and ‘“Pleasant”’ scrutinize the primary decade of his career as a dramatist (the 1890s). ‘“Puritan”’ spotlights upon Shaw’s shaping of stage comedy at the dawning of the 20th century to sensationalize the workings of his up-and-coming religion. ‘“Political”’ details a hard time in the playwright’s career when his views about the First World War placed him powerfully in opposition to public opinion but from which ultimately materialize his greatest plays and highest tributes.
Tracing the ultimate phase of his dramaturgy, ‘“Extravagant”’ attends to the ways in which his plays continue to trial with dramatic form as he looks for ways to recuperate his sanguinity in social progress amid the overwhelming effects of the war and economic gloominess.
Last of all, ‘“Farfetched”’ charts the curves of the end of Shaw’s life and his own sense of his inheritance.
In one of his letters to Archibald Henderson, Shaw portrayd himself as a man “up to the chin in the life of his own time.” Earlier he had impudently announced in a letter to a friend that “my business is to incarnate the zeitgeist.” Shaw’s engagement with his epoch was indeed remarkably full; he was, in manifold ways, a herald and creator of cultural and social change.
Thus, any book on Shaw has to outline his calling with regard to a roomy extent of aspects that shaped the character of the age in which he lived.
This book does exactly that.
His realism was fundamentally poles apart from the realism of other authors in the logic that it had a productive arrangement and a penitentiary fanaticism behind it. He was a pragmatist and hard-bitten reviewer of life and traditions with an unambiguous rationale in view.
The rationale was to picture the social stupidity and iniquities with the intention of purging them. He was a realist who had the audacity to face the truth, to say publicly that establishments are neither innate nor consecrated and they are for the most part human contraptions which should not be allowed to outlive their communal efficacy.
Shaw was not only a pragmatist but also a caricaturist, and he was a caricaturist because he was an iconoclast, a breaker of idols.
His denigration of societal circumstances proceeded from a novel metaphysics. He had gone to the origins of conformist convictions and ideas and showed what the indispensable actuality behind peripheral stipulations were -- which to him were not only unreal, but merely deformations of reality.
For him, what was incorrect with society was not that there was one inequality here or another there, but in the whole understanding of the Life Force. The dissimilarity between him and other realists was in the definitive examination, not of degree but of kind, but it was so great that it should be stressed as a basis to the correct appraisement of his art and philosophy. Other realists were painters of phenomena’ while Shaw was a seeker of the realism behind phenomena.
The tome under discussion provides a handy groundwork for those discovering Shaw’s writing for the first time, on the page or on the stage, and provides an outline for further revision and deepened appreciation.
The utter wordiness and range of Shaw’s writing can at times feel intimidating; indeed, there are few writers who are so creative, so interdisciplinary, so impudent, and who lived so long.
This tome is an alternate for the experience of reading or seeing productions of Shaw’s plays nor does it offer either detailed summaries of them or a methodical, widespread biography of their author.
Rather, with numerous opportunities to come across Shaw ‘in his own words’, the author draws the inspired progression of central themes and styles over his long career. While far from thorough on its subject, this volume offers an outline of Shaw’s susceptibility as a writer and public figure so as to foster among readers and audience members greater self-assurance in joining the conversations he coordinates.
The book is organized into seven chapters: --
1) ‘GBS’
2) ‘Unpleasant’
3) ‘Pleasant’
4) ‘Puritan’
5) ‘Political’
6) ‘Extravagant’
7) ‘Farfetched’
The opening chapter, ‘“GBS”’, examines Shaw’s early years in Dublin, the forging of his professional roots in London, and the contriving of his rascally, intrepid public character.
The six residual sections are each designated with an adjective Shaw himself selected to categorize and exemplify the published versions of his plays. They each stand for top Shavian ingredients that together are always concurrently operational in Shaw’s decisive and dramaturgical performance.
Both ‘“Unpleasant”’ and ‘“Pleasant”’ scrutinize the primary decade of his career as a dramatist (the 1890s). ‘“Puritan”’ spotlights upon Shaw’s shaping of stage comedy at the dawning of the 20th century to sensationalize the workings of his up-and-coming religion. ‘“Political”’ details a hard time in the playwright’s career when his views about the First World War placed him powerfully in opposition to public opinion but from which ultimately materialize his greatest plays and highest tributes.
Tracing the ultimate phase of his dramaturgy, ‘“Extravagant”’ attends to the ways in which his plays continue to trial with dramatic form as he looks for ways to recuperate his sanguinity in social progress amid the overwhelming effects of the war and economic gloominess.
Last of all, ‘“Farfetched”’ charts the curves of the end of Shaw’s life and his own sense of his inheritance.
In one of his letters to Archibald Henderson, Shaw portrayd himself as a man “up to the chin in the life of his own time.” Earlier he had impudently announced in a letter to a friend that “my business is to incarnate the zeitgeist.” Shaw’s engagement with his epoch was indeed remarkably full; he was, in manifold ways, a herald and creator of cultural and social change.
Thus, any book on Shaw has to outline his calling with regard to a roomy extent of aspects that shaped the character of the age in which he lived.
This book does exactly that.
March 5, 2021
The Oxford Short introduction series is usually a safe bet and they have finally got around to dealing with GBS - the witty coruscating Irish playwright and journalist who is perhaps somewhat out of fashion along with writers such as Lawrence - both had opinions and something to say... not so popular in this non nuanced polarised world of black and white debate and social media memes. Still as Christopher Wixson... drily points out Shaws talent for self publicity would have anticipated the solipsism of social media mores and his career was all about the shavian brand.
The bulk of the book provides a decent thoughtful and well argued outline of Shaws life. It’s good on his ideas and philosophy and how these were reflected by his plays and other writing. Wixson is a fan and this is all for the best as he clearly knows his stuff. There was a time when Shaws name was enough to provide a huge advance for a biography as Michael Holroyds three volume magnum opus can attest. It hardly gets a mention here ( being perhaps dated) and this book prefers some more up to date less showy biographical references. The book is cleverly organised each chapter taking a Shaw epigrammatic phrase to outline both the biographical chronology with a theme- eg after dealing with the Shavian branding the book covers “pleasant” and “unpleasant “ dealing with the relevant plays and his life.
Shaws controversial support for Stalinist Russia is dealt with as is his initial faith in dictators.
His plays are well discussed and the book is strong on this - anyone looking for colourful references to his life should perhaps look elsewhere - this is more a literary primer than a biography and the author is more concerned with the Shavian GBS persona than Shaw the man. Still even at this detached level it’s a fascinating story and despite Shaws lower profile these days his legacy as a builder of modern theatre tropes and trends is well argued. Indeed Shaw comes across as a risk taker and a brave innovator contributing greatly to all aspects of theatre practice- that his plays provided unique staging challenges or anticipated some future trends is worth repeating. He sometimes comes across as flaky and Uber priggish or eccentric but he was clearly both aware of legacy and his standing. So this book does a little more than it needs too providing a stimulating and reliable guide to a unique persona - I might have wanted more on family and personal life and perhaps prose that more elegantly covered biographical approaches to the man- what does the author think of the Holroyd trilogy and how did it reflect the view of Shaw then? Why is he seemingly out of favour now generally ? Is he held in high enough esteem ? Or overrated? Still maybe this book will see me look for those answers elsewhere - this is a clever book given its brevity and on that basis , it’s a Shaw thing.
The bulk of the book provides a decent thoughtful and well argued outline of Shaws life. It’s good on his ideas and philosophy and how these were reflected by his plays and other writing. Wixson is a fan and this is all for the best as he clearly knows his stuff. There was a time when Shaws name was enough to provide a huge advance for a biography as Michael Holroyds three volume magnum opus can attest. It hardly gets a mention here ( being perhaps dated) and this book prefers some more up to date less showy biographical references. The book is cleverly organised each chapter taking a Shaw epigrammatic phrase to outline both the biographical chronology with a theme- eg after dealing with the Shavian branding the book covers “pleasant” and “unpleasant “ dealing with the relevant plays and his life.
Shaws controversial support for Stalinist Russia is dealt with as is his initial faith in dictators.
His plays are well discussed and the book is strong on this - anyone looking for colourful references to his life should perhaps look elsewhere - this is more a literary primer than a biography and the author is more concerned with the Shavian GBS persona than Shaw the man. Still even at this detached level it’s a fascinating story and despite Shaws lower profile these days his legacy as a builder of modern theatre tropes and trends is well argued. Indeed Shaw comes across as a risk taker and a brave innovator contributing greatly to all aspects of theatre practice- that his plays provided unique staging challenges or anticipated some future trends is worth repeating. He sometimes comes across as flaky and Uber priggish or eccentric but he was clearly both aware of legacy and his standing. So this book does a little more than it needs too providing a stimulating and reliable guide to a unique persona - I might have wanted more on family and personal life and perhaps prose that more elegantly covered biographical approaches to the man- what does the author think of the Holroyd trilogy and how did it reflect the view of Shaw then? Why is he seemingly out of favour now generally ? Is he held in high enough esteem ? Or overrated? Still maybe this book will see me look for those answers elsewhere - this is a clever book given its brevity and on that basis , it’s a Shaw thing.
April 7, 2023
Too often this gets bogged down in some rushed synopsis of a play. It pays off at the end, however, with an admirably frank discussion of Shaw’s flirtation - perhaps infatuation is not too strong a word where Stalin is concerned - with totalitarianism in the 1930s.
January 7, 2024
Strong in its overview and through-line of Shaw’s work and career, but somewhat rushed in attempting to summarize some plays too briefly while overspending on others. The limited space of the Very Short Intro series can have that drawback.
April 2, 2025
This concise guide to George Bernard Shaw is an exploration of the works of the prolific playwright and how his philosophy and life experiences influenced the stories he created. The book is arranged by periods of Shaw's own determining, including: Unpleasant, Pleasant, Puritan, Political, Extravagant, and Farfetched. The book does mention Shaw's novels, literary criticism, and some of his major non-literary activities, but largely in the context of the comedies, tragedies, and histories he wrote for the stage.
If you are interested the works of George Bernard Shaw and how they came to be, I'd recommend this book. It's a quick read and offers some fascinating insights.
If you are interested the works of George Bernard Shaw and how they came to be, I'd recommend this book. It's a quick read and offers some fascinating insights.
November 22, 2022
So much information condensed into a little book. An excellent resource.
January 6, 2025
Things I learned from the book: Shaw had a relationship with Eleanor Marx, Karl Marx's daughter. He was suspicious of vaccination. Generally: The amount of energy this man had stresses me out.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews