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August
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Transferred to www.oscholars.com with minor revisions
December 2008 |
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The Associate Editor of THE
OSCHOLARS with responsibility for helping with this issue of SHAVINGS was Julie A. Sparks of the Department of
English, University of Arkansas-Monticello. |
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‘Oh, Shaw! That’s the man who
smokes Jaeger cigarettes!’ |
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Note: Subscribers
to this Journal have their names printed in bold, and can be contacted through us at oscholars@netscape.net. |
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In this section we shall try to cover productions of Shaw’s
pre-1901 plays, and news of productions of these (with offers of review) will
be most welcome. The plays are Arms and the Man (1894), Cæsar
and Cleopatra (1898), Candida (1895), Captain Brassbound’s
Conversion (1899), The Devil’s Disciple (1897), The Man of
Destiny (1895), Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893), The Philanderer
(1893), Widowers’ Houses (1892), You Never Can Tell (1895). (Dates
of composition, not first performance.) Wilde is known to have
attended the first night of Arms and the Man (20th April 1894). |
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The Shaw Season at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, has been announced.
The plays for 2003 are Widowers’ Houses (15th
May to 4th October) and Misalliance (10th April to 2nd November) . |
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Arms and The Man is having a number of outings: |
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Pendragon Theatre |
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Bus Barn Stage Company |
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The Devil’s Disciple
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Mrs. Warren’s Profession |
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Twentieth Century clippings: |
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After opening in Pittsburgh on 5th June,
the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre will be taking a production of Major
Barbara, directed by Matt O’Brien, to Ireland and playing at the Galway
Arts Festival and the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire (29th July to 16th August). |
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Man and Superman opened at the Pitochry Festival on the 26th June
and runs through the season in repertory to
17th October. Directed by Richard Baron |
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The current London run of My Fair Lady will close on 30th August. |
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Michael
Friend has staged a number of Shaw’s plays at Shaw’s Corner, Ayot
St Lawrence. Full details of all the productions, cast lists,
photographs, and touring plans for 2003, can be found at Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.. |
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Saint Joan opened 27th to 29th June at Shaw’s
Corner, Ayot St.Lawrence. Cast includes Adam Bampton-Smith, Lottie
Bovingdon, Simon Evison, Phil Gerrard, Moira Opazo, Roger Ringrose, Peter
Saracen, Andrew Wheaton, Anthony Wise. |
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2. Shawlines
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In this section we will print all the news that we find or, better still,
are sent. We especially welcome news of Shaw on curricula. |
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We also wish to record articles and papers relating to the earlier Shaw,
and news of new editions of Cashel Byron’s Profession (1886), An
Unsocial Socialist (1887), The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), The
Perfect Wagnerite (1898), Love Among the Artists (1900), as well
as other related material. |
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Linda Wong (Hong Kong Baptist University) kindly draws our
attention to |
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QIAN, Jiyang. ‘The Symptom of Subconscious
Suppression: On G.B. Shaw’s Plays and the Image of Woman in “Scholarly-Gentlemen-and-Beautiful-Ladies”
Novels in China.’ Foreign Languages Research 74.4 (2002): 57-66.
(China). [In Chinese]. |
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Gearóid O’Flaherty’s article ‘George Bernard Shaw and Ireland’ will
be published in August in The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth Century
Irish Drama, edited by Shaun Richards. ISBN 0 521 80400 0
Hardback £45.00; ISBN 0 521 00873 5 Paperback £15.95. |
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Shaw’s Corner at Ayot St Lawrence re-opened for the season on 2nd April. It can be contacted at shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk
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The Shaw Birthplace in Dublin re-opened on the 1st May. It can be contacted at shawhouse@dublintourism.ie |
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SHAW IN THE HERE
AND NOW |
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The Dublin Writers Museum will hold an exhibition devoted to Shaw and to
Sean O’Casey throughout March 2004. If any readers have memorabilia
that they are willing to lend, under the usual guarantees of security,
insurance and proper curatorial care, please contact us at oscholars@netscape.net |
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3. A Shaw Anthology
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Echoes of Oscar |
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Arms and the Man |
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Although it is difficult for even close reading to convince that this play
is more than a trifle, a prelude to deeper plays in future, it can perhaps be
given some added meaning by incorporating it into a Shaw/Wilde discussion. It
is valuable, for example, to read Raina Petkova with Vera, Cicely and
Gwendolen in mind, curious mix as she is of idealism both assumed and real,
and artlessness, both real and assumed. Major Petkoff says of his
daughter ‘She always appears at the right moment’, and his wife replies ‘Yes;
she listens for it. It is an abominable habit.’ This is not
necessarily to suggest influence, but it is to suggest affinity. |
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If The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire is a sort of internal
Ruritania, so the house in the ‘small town near the Dragoman Pass’ has its
own status between prelapsarian innocence and the Fall itself, with the Tree
of Knowledge (‘the only library in Bulgaria’), about to give of its
fruit. Such knowledge, in the form of self-awareness, is one of the
more serious themes in Wilde: ‘O Arthur,’ says Lady Windermere, ‘don’t love
me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to
Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red.’ Act II
of both The Importance of Being Earnest and Arms and the Man is
set in thegarden of the repective houses. Raina tells Bluntschli ‘You
shewed great ignorance in thinking that it was necessary to climb up to the
balcony because ours is the only private house that has two sets of
windows. There is a flight of stairs inside to get up and down by.’
The intertextual reading with Wilde here is in An Ideal Husband: ‘At
the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern, a woman of grave Greek
beauty’: we are again in the Balkans. One may also note that the rose ‘Maréchal
Niel’ in the garden at Woolton is a climber. |
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The subplot between with servants Nicola and Louka is more
eighteenth-century than Wildëan, but there is one exchange of significance in
a conversation between Sergius (the officer formally betrothed to Raina) and
her maid: |
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Sergius: If our
conversation is to continue, Louka, you will please remember that a gentleman
does not discuss the conduct of the lady he is engaged to with her maid. |
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This shifting of how a gentleman should behave is a constant themes in
Wilde. |
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Lord Fermor: If a man is a gentleman, he knows
quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
(The Picture of Dorian Gray) |
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Lord Illingworth: If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough,
and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. (A Woman of
No Importance ) |
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Sir Robert Chiltern: You have
lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise
that you are talking to an English gentleman. |
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Jack: It is a very ungentlemanly
thing to read a private cigarette case. |
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Jack: Your duty as a gentleman
calls you back. |
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Being found out is almost an obsessive
theme in Wilde (hardly surprisingly): |
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‘No, Basil, you must tell me,’ insisted Dorian
Gray. ‘I think I have a right to know.’ His feeling of terror had
passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. He was determined
to find out Basil Hallward’s mystery. |
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Algernon: The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that
is what I mean–so Bunbury died. |
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Jack: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out
suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. |
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James Fane: If this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he
is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. |
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Lady Chiltern: You have guessed it. After you left last night I
found out that what she had said was really true. Of course I made Robert
write her a letter at once, withdrawing his promise. |
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Lady Hunstanton: How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You
always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue.
You have the most comforting views of life. |
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Lady Stutfield: Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that
one should believe evil of every one? |
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Lady Windermere: Have you found out at what time Lord Windermere
came in last night? |
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Lady Windermere: I know where Arthur keeps his bank book---in one
of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out. |
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Lady Windermere: You think it wrong that you are found out, don’t
you? |
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Lord Darlington: I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be
intelligible is to be found out. |
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Lord Goring: So she has found out everything! Poor woman! Poor
woman! |
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Lord Goring: That is the reason they are so pleased to find out
other people’s secrets. It distracts public attention from their own. |
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Lord Henry Wotton: But she would have soon found out that you were
absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out
about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart
bonnets that some other woman’s husband has to pay for. |
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Lord Henry Wotton: I like to find out people for myself. |
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Mrs Allonby: I found out then that what he had told me was perfectly
true. And that sort of thing makes a man so absolutely uninteresting. |
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Mrs Erlynne: Don’t use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar. I
saw my chance, it is true, and took it. Lord Windermere: Yes, you took
it---and spoiled it all last night by being found out. |
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Sir Robert Chiltern: If my wife found out, there would be little
left to fight for. |
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It is clear enough that even in Edenic Bulgaria truth is a negotiable
instrument: |
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Bluntschli: You said youd only told two lies in
your whole life. Dear young lady: isnt that rather a short
allowance? I’m quite a straightforward man myself; but it wouldn’t
last me a whole morning. |
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Raina protests that she is being insulted, and then collapses ‘How did you
find me out?’ |
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But of course all is sham here: the heroism of Sergius, the social
standing of Petkoff, the airs of Louka. Bluntschli, whom we meet as a
sort of holy fool, is man of sense and decisiveness when required to be
so. Yet the play ends on an ambiguous note, with Sergius’s declaration
about Bluntschli, which from its punctuation is a statement, but from its
grammar is a question: ‘What a man! Is he a man!’ |
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Candida |
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In Candida, we find a number of references that draw us back to
Wilde, not least in the two leading male characters, the Revd James
Mavor Morell and Eugene Marchbanks. Morell (like the Revd Stewart
Headlam, who went bail for Wilde, and is referred in the stage directions
towards the beginning of Act I) is a Christian Socialist, but he also has
something of a physical resemblance to Wilde at the height of his powers: |
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A vigorous, genial, popular man of forty, robust and
goodlooking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty considerate manners [. .
.] with a wide range and command of expression [ . . .] His well-spring of
enthusiasm and sympathetic emotion has never run dry for a moment [. . . ]
pardonably vain of his powers and unconsciously pleased with himself [. . .]
good forehead [. . .] eyes bright and eager, mouth resolute but not
particularly well cut [. . .] |
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Morell’s books include Henry George’s Progress and Poverty,Fabian
Essays (to which GBS himself contributed), Morris’s A Dream of John
Ball, Marx’s Capital ‘and half a dozen literary landmarks in
Socialism’. One would be hard put in 1898 to name half a dozen literary
landmarks in Socialism that did not include Wilde’s The Soul of Man.
His admiration for his wife Candida, ‘a good woman’, is that of Robert for
Gertrude Chiltern (although Candida’s admiration for James is exactly
the reverse of that of Gertrude for Robert). He also expresses himself
aphoristically, although, as so often with Shaw, one feels that Wilde would
have been less sententious: ‘We have no more right to consume happiness
without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it’. We
are told that he has addressed the Women’s Liberal Federation on the theme of
the Woman Question [Lady Chiltern: I have just come from the Woman’s Liberal
Association, where, by the way, Robert, your name was received with loud
applause]. Candida can also express herself aphoristically ‘How conventional
all you unconventional people are!’ (cp. Lord Windermere: How hard good women
are! Lady Windermere: How weak bad men are!) |
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But it is Morell’s foil, the poet Marchbanks, who steps out of the world
of the Rhymer’s Club and the Café Royal. The nephew of an earl (and
Eugene of course means well-born, while Marchbanks, in its form ‘Marjoribanks’,
was the family name of Lord Tweedmouth), he is ‘a strange, shy youth of
eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted
tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitiveness
of very swift and accurate apprehensiveness [. . . .] Miserably irresolute,
he does not know where to stand or what to do [. . .] His nostrils, mouth,
and eyes betray a fiercely petulant wilfulness’. It is not difficult to
give a queer reading to this description, nor to discern there something of ‘Bosie’
Douglas. We do not get much of his poetry, but we are given too
understand that he is an 1890s æsthete when he says to Candida that he should
to give her ‘a boat; a tiny shallop to sail away in, far from the world,
where the marble floors are washed by the rain and dried by the sun; wherre
the south wind dusts the beautiful green and purple carpets. Or a
chariot! to carry us up into the sky, where the lamps are stars.’ This is not
Marchbanks’ only æsthetic conceit: the phrase ‘Let me go now. The night
outside grows impatient’ is very Wildëan. |
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This strikes Morell as all too high-falutin’, but Candida reminds Morell
that Marchbanks cleans the household’s boots (Marchbanks: ‘Oh don’t talk
about boots! Your feet should be beautiful on the mountains’), and it will be
recalled that Constance Wilde is said to have interrupted a poetic discourse
of Oscar’s by referring to Cyril’s boots. It is not necessary to
believe that she did so (Vyvyan Holland poured scorn on the notion), but it
may have been an ill-natured on dit at the time, unless the story was
a much later fabrication by Frank Harris. The text and and the anecdote
may be at least be read together; just as one cannot learn Morell’s uncommon
middle name without recalling Sidney Mavor, who once spent the night with
Wilde at the Albemarle Hotel. |
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Morell’s secretary is called Proserpine Garnett (‘a brisk little woman of
the lower middle class’), and acts to some extent as raisonneuse.
Addressed as Miss Prossy, she may be a younger incarnation of Miss Prism, who
also has a pretentious classical first name, Letitia. Shaw likes to
play these little games with names: one thinks of ‘Rummy’ Mitchens, the
broken down old woman in Major Barbara, who was named after George
Eliot’s Romola. |
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After writing the above, we read Sally Peters: Bernard Shaw, The Ascent of the
Superman. New Haven & London: Yale University Press 1996.
On p.164 Peters writes ‘Adding to the ambiguity surrounding the
character is the fact that Marchbanks originally had been written as
Marjoribanks -- and marjorie was known as an abusive term for a male
homosexual’ [cit. Jeffrey Weeks: Sex, Politics and Society.
London: Longmans 1990 p.111.] |
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Major Barbara |
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There is some scope for discussing ‘the most marvellous of all gospels,
the gospel of gold’, as expounded by Baron Arnheim to dazzle Robert Chiltern,
and its use by Andrew Undershaft. Wildëan echoes are frequent in Major
Barbara. |
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. . . |
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SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Believe me,
Mrs. Cheveley, it is a swindle. Let us call things by their proper names. |
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UNDERSHAFT: Pooh,
Professor! let us call things by their proper names. |
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. . . |
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‘I know how people chatter in
England. The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their
gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of
their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and
on intimate terms with the people they slander.’ (Dorian Gray speaking) |
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LADY BRITOMART: ‘It is
only in the middle classes that people get in a state of dumb helpless horror
when they find that there are wicked people in the world. |
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. . . |
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‘Modern morality consists in accepting
the standard of one’s age. I consider that for any man of culture to
accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.’
(Lord Henry Wotton speaking) |
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MRS CHEVELEY:
Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a
paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues. |
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CECIL GRAHAM: But scandal
is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who
moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably
plain. |
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CECILY: I hope
you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being
really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy. |
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LADY BRITOMART: Just as one doesnt mind men
practising immorality so long as they own they are in the wrong by preaching
morality; so I couldn’t forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while
practising morality. |
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. . . |
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GERALD: Mother, this is Lord
Illingworth, who has offered to take me as his private secretary. It is
a wonderful opening for me, isn’t it? |
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LADY BRACKNELL: I have always been of
opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything
or nothing. Which do you know? |
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UNDERSHAFT: He
knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points to a
political career. Get him a private secretaryship to some one who can
get him an Under Secretaryship. |
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. . . |
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LADY BRACKNELL: What is
your income? |
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LADY BRITOMART: You
know how poor my father he is: he has barely seven thousand a year now; and
really, if he were not the Earl of Stevenage, he would have to give up
society. |
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. . . |
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One should also note that the career of Adolphus Cusins in Major
Barbara turns on his being a foundling, while the future of Jack Worthing
turns on his not being one. |
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JACK: It is a terrible thing for a man
to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the
truth. |
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‘Make any statement
that is so true that it has been staring us in the face all our lives, and
the whole world will rise up and contradict you.’ |
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Letters |
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ALGERNON: I wish you would reform
me. You might make that your mission. |
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‘No fascinating woman
ever wants to emancipate her sex’ |
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Cashel Byron’s
Profession |
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Cashel Byron’s Profession was
written some years before the greater part of Wilde’s work was undertaken,
but it reveals how Shaw was also dipping into the same pool as Wilde.
Here is Lydia Carew on railway trains: |
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A train is a beautiful
thing. Its pure white fleece of steam harmonises with every variety of
landscape. |
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This was said at Clapham Junction, where in November 1895 Wilde had other
things on his mind. |
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Cashel Byron’s Profession also has a prominent character called
Lord Worthington. Had it been written ten years later we would
have seized on this compound of John Worthing and Lord Darlington, just as
Wilde’s Lady Roxton and Lady Plymdale seem to combine in Shaw’s Lady Roxdale
(Widowers’ Houses). Byron goes to a ‘scholastic establishment
for the sons of gentlemen’ called Moncrief House. |
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Man and Superman
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John Cooper draws our attention
to the following: |
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In this world there are
two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting
it. The last is much the worst. |
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There are two tragedies
in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it. |
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4. Bibliographies & Links
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GBS for Wildeans: A
Bibliography of 19th Century Shaw. |
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This will be a cumulative
bibliography as references come to hand. |
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Beerbohm, Max: Around Theatres.
London: Rupert Hart-Davis 1953. |
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This carries reviews of plays published in the Saturday
Review, namely The Devil’s Disciple (‘“G.B.S.” at Kennington’, 7th October
1899, pp.38-41; and the 1907 revival ‘Mr. Vedrenne’, 26th October 1907,
pp.481-4); You Never Can Tell (12th May 1900, pp.78-9); the 1901 reprint of
Cashel Byron’s Profession (‘A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S.’, 2nd November
1901, pp.171-5); Mrs Warren’s Profession (‘Mr Shaw’s Tragedy’, 1st February
1902, pp. 191-5); the 1907 revival of The Philanderer (9th February 1907
pp.449-51); and the 1908 revival of Arms and the Man (4th January 1908,
pp.491-3). There is also a review of the published edition of Three
Plays for Puritans (The Devil’s Disciple, Cæsar and Cleopatra and Captain
Brassbound’s Conversion) (‘Mr Shaw Crescent’, 26th January 1901, pp. 118-22).
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Outside our current range are reviews of The Doctors’ Dilemma, Getting Married, John Bull’s Other Island,
Major Barbara, Man and Superman, Misalliance, and Pygmalion. |
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Beerbohm, Max: More
Theatres. London: Rupert Hart-Davis 1969. This volume contains Beerbohm’s
pieces for the Saturday Review that he omitted from the first edition
of Around Theatres (1924), an omission followed in the 1953 edition. |
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This volume opens with three squibs against Shaw ‘G.B.S.
Oblige’ (9th April 1898, pp.17-21), ‘Mr Shaw’s Profession’ (14th May 1898,
pp.21-4) and ‘Mr Shaw’s Profession II’ (pp.25-7, 21st May 1898). These
contain allusions to Arms and the Man (p.25), Candida (p.26), Mrs
Warren’s Profession (pp.21-4, 25), Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (p.11),
The Devil’s Disciple (pp.21, 335), The Philanderer (p.21), Widowers’
Houses (21, 25), You Never Can Tell (pp.25, 26). |
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There are further references to Mrs Warren’s
Profession (p70), Arms and the Man (p267), Cæsar &
Cleopatra (p.271). |
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The volume also contains a review of Captain
Brassbound’s Conversion (29th December 1900, pp.335-7). From beyond
our period is The Admirable Bashville (pp.580-2). |
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Borsa, Mario:
The English Stage of To-day. Translated from the original
Italian and edited with a prefatory note by Selwyn Brinton M.A. London:
John Lane The Bodley Head 1908. This has one chapter on Shaw.
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Chapter IV:
G.B.S. |
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Boyd, Ernest A.:
Appreciations and Depreciations, Irish Literary Portraits. Dublin:
Talbot Press & London: T. Fisher Unwin 1919. This has one chapter
on Shaw. |
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Chapter V: An Irish Protestant, Bernard Shaw. |
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Dietrich, Richard: Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Superman: A Study of Shaw’s Novels.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press 1969. |
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Innes, Christopher (ed.): The
Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1998. This contains four essays on the younger Shaw: |
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Gordon, David J.: Shavian Comedy and the Shadow of Wilde; |
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Jackson, Holbrook: The
Eighteen Nineties. 1913. Pelican Books 1939. This
contains a chapter devoted to Shaw. |
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Chapter
XIV: Enter G.B.S. |
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Kennedy, J.M. English
Literature 1880-1905. London: Stephen Swift 1912. This
contains one chapter on Shaw. |
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Chapter VI: George Bernard Shaw. |
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Laurence, Dan H.: Bernard
Shaw, Collected Letters 1874-1897. London: Max Reinhardt 1965. |
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Laurence, Dan H.: Bernard
Shaw, Collected Letters 1898-1910. London: Max Reinhardt 1972. |
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Meisel, Martin: Shaw and the
Nineteenth Century Theater. Princeton University Press 1963; new
edition New York: Limelight Editions 1984 ISBN 0-87910-017-6. |
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Morgan, A.L.: Tendencies of Modern
English Drama. London: Constable 1924. This contains three
chapters on Shaw: |
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Chapter VI.
Shaw the Iconoclast--Dramatic Iconoclast |
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Nicoll, Allardyce: British
Drama, An Historical Survey from the Beginning to the PresentTime.
London: George G. Harrap 1925; second edition 1927; 3rd edition revised 1832,
reprinted 1945. Nicoll specifically links Shaw and Wilde. |
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Part VII: The Revival in the Drama (1890-1920) |
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Peters, Sally: Bernard Shaw, The
Ascent of the Superman. New Haven & London: Yale University
Press 1996. |
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This is chiefly concerned with the first half of Shaw’s
life, and includes some notable ‘queer’ reading. |
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--and covering a later period than the pre-1901 Shaw,
the following should be mentioned: |
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Hyde, Mary (ed.)::Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas, A
Correspondence. London: John Murray 1982. |
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Weintraub, Stanley (ed.): The
Playwright and the Pirate, Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris, A Correspondence.
Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania State University Press and Gerrards Cross: Colin
Smythe 1982. |
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This covers not only Harris’s ‘biography’ of Shaw but
the attempts of Harris to involve Shaw in his book on Wilde. The first
letter in this collection is Harris to Shaw 30th November 1898. The
second (Shaw to Harris 4th November 1900) gives Shaw’s views on Mr and Mrs
Daventry. There is one more letter from this period
(Shaw to Harris 16th December 1900); the correspondence resumes in December
1904. |
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The following bring together Shaw and Wilde: |
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Bader, Earl Delbert: ‘The
Self-Reflexive Language: uses of Paradox in Wilde, Shaw and Chesterton .’ Ph.
D. dissertation. Indiana University 1962. |
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Beckson, Karl: ‘Oscar Wilde’s Celebrated
Remark on Bernard Shaw.’ Notes and Queries 41(239): 3 Oxford 1994. |
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Gollin, Richard M.: ‘Beerbohm, Wilde, Shaw and “The
Good-Natured Critic”.’ Bulletin of the New York Public Library 68, New
York February 1964. |
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Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde, including My
Memories of Oscar Wilde by George Bernard Shaw. Carroll: New York
1997. |
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Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life &
Confessions, with memories of Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw and Criticisms by
Robert Ross. The author, 2nd edition, the first with the pieces by Shaw
and Ross. New York 1918. |
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Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life &
Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. The
author. London 1918. |
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Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life &
Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. New York:
Crown Publishing Co 1930. |
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Hill, John Edward: ‘Dialectical Æstheticism —
Essays on the Criticism of Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, James, Shaw and Yeats’.
University of Virginia Thesis Virginia 1972. |
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Jordan, John: ‘Shaw, Wilde, Synge and Yeats:
Ideas, Epigrams, Blackberries and Chassis’ Wolfhound in The Irish Mind;
Exploring Intellectual Traditions Dublin 1985. |
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Koritz, Amy E.: ‘Gendering Bodies, Performing
Art: Theatrical Dancing and the Performance Æsthetics of Wilde, Shaw &
Yeats’. Dissertation Abstracts International 50 : 3 [North Carolina
1988] Ann Arbor 1989. |
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Lee, Josephine D.: ‘Language & Action in
the Plays of Wilde, Shaw & Stoppard.’ Dissertation Abstracts
International 48 : 7 Ann Arbor 1988. |
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Livermore, Ann: ‘Goldoni, Wilde and Shaw:
Co-Inventors of Comedy.’ Revue de la Littérature Comparée 53 |
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Loughney, Martin: Springs of Irish Wisdom:
Shaw, Wilde, Swift, Yeats. Dublin: Infinity Books 1989. |
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Nassaar, Christopher Suhal: ‘Wilde’s Lady
Windermere’s Fan and Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession.’ Explicator
56 |
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Powell, Kerry: ‘Wilde, Shaw and Women of
the Stage.’ William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Conference: Oscar
Wilde and the Culture of the Fin-de-Siècle, Session II Los Angeles 5th March
1999. |
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Roy, Emil: British Drama Since Shaw
[Chapter on The Importance of Being Earnest] Carbondale and London :
Southern Illinois U.P. & Feffer and Simons 1972. |
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Ruff, William: ‘Shaw on Wilde and Morris, A
Clarification’ Shaw Review 11 : 1 January 1968. |
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Sherard, Robert Harborough: Bernard Shaw,
Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. New York 1936. |
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Sherard, Robert Harborough: Bernard Shaw,
Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. T. Werner Laurie London 1937. |
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Sherard, Robert Harborough: Oscar Wilde ‘Drunkard
& Swindler’: A Reply to George Bernard Shaw, Dr G.J. Renier, Frank Harris
etc. Calvi: Vindex Publishing Co. 1933. |
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Weintraub, Stanley: ‘“The Hibernian School”:
Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw.’ SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw
Studies 13 1993. |
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Weintraub, Stanley: Shaw’s
People: Victoria to Churchill. University Park, Pennsylvania: 1996. |
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Wisenthal, J. L.: ‘Wilde, Shaw and the
Play of Conversation Modern Drama.’ (U. of Toronto Graduate Centre for
Study of Drama) 37:1 Downsview, Ontario Spring 1994. |
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We welcome additions and corrections, and would much like
to hear from any of the writers still living. |
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A list of websites kindly provided by
Richard Dietrich (University of
South Florida): |
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BERNARD
SHAW SOCIETY WEB SITE (see illustration below): |
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UNIVERSITY PRESS OF
FLORIDA SHAW SERIES WEB SITE: |
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SHAW BIZNESS WEB
SITE: |
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INTERNATIONAL SHAW
SOCIETY WEB SITE: |
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THE SHAW FESTIVAL |
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH
FLORIDA SHAW CONFERENCE 2004 AT SARASOTA: |
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BRITISH DRAMA
1890-1950: |
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5. SHAW ASSOCIATIONS
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The Bernard Shaw Society may be reached at P.O. Box 1159, Madison Square
Station New York, N.Y. 10159-1159 |
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The Society publishes The Independent Shavian. The image
below is the latest one on their website (vol.40 nos 2-3. 2002). |
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The Independent Shavian appears three times a year and is sent
to all members of the Bernard Shaw Society at no charge as part of their
membership dues. |
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The Dublin Shaw Society. This maintains no
website but may be contacted through the Hon. Chairman, Brian Mc Grath
<bricar@gofree.indigo.ie>.
The Society meets on the third Wednesday of every month in the United Arts
Club, 3 Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2. Membership is €15 p.a., for an
individual, €25 for a couple. |
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6. TAILPIECE
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Rebecca West is discussing literature with an unnamed
doctoral student in Vienna in the late 1930s. |
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‘“Ah, Show, Show,” cried the golden-haired girl,
pronouncing it to rhyme with “cow”. “Shaw,” I said irritably. “Yes,
Show, Show,” she went on, “we have not talked of him. I suppose you
admire him greatly.” “Not very much,” I said. “How is that
possible?” she asked. “Here we think him your greatest writer, next to
Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde.” “Next to Oscar Wilde, perhaps, but not to
Shakespeare,” I snapped.’ |
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– From the
epilogue to Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), reprinted on p.753 of Rebecca
West: A Celebration, Selected from her Writings, with a critical
Introduction by Samuel Hynes. London: Macmillan 1977. |
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