Bernard Shaw on Literature

George Bernard Shaw

feb 2016 · RosettaBooks

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A collection of literary criticism from the Nobel Prize–winning playwright behind such classics as Saint Joan and Pygmalion.

The Critical Shaw: On Literature is a comprehensive selection of renowned Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate Bernard Shaw’s ideas and opinions on a wide range of literary forms of expression, from Shakespearean drama to ghost stories, from naturalist novels to philosophical essays. Shaw meticulously applied his comprehensive knowledge of the intricacies of writing and publishing (composition, typesetting, style, themes, censorship) and in the process produced an extensive array of critical works spanning more than fifty years. Always with an axe to grind—whether aesthetic, ethical, or otherwise—Shaw tested the boundaries of satire in his critical essays, occasionally locking horns as a result with some of the most prominent authors of his lifetime. Displaying wit and wisdom in equal proportions, some of his reviews remain fresh even though the authors and books they appraised have long since fallen into oblivion. Shaw’s views about literature challenged established conventions of the canon and helped to shape a renewed collective concept of literature.

The Critical Shaw series brings together, in five volumes and from a wide range of sources, selections from Bernard Shaw’s voluminous writings on topics that exercised him for the whole of his professional career: Literature, Music, Politics, Religion, and Theater. The volumes are edited by leading Shaw scholars, and all include an introduction, a chronology of Shaw’s life and works, annotated texts, and a bibliography. The series editor is L.W. Conolly, literary adviser to the Shaw Estate and former president of the International Shaw Society.

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Acclaimed Irish playwright and Nobel laureate Bernard Shaw has left an indelible mark on Western theater, culture, and politics. Over the course of his life, he wrote more than sixty plays that addressed prevailing social problems through comedy. Shaw was also a prolific essayist and lecturer on politics, economics, and sociological subjects, and was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work that is marked by its use of stunning satire to encapsulate humanity.

Gustavo A. Rodríguez Martín is Assistant Professor of English Philology at Universidad de Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain. He is the bibliographer of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, and editor of the annual bibliography "A Continuing Checklist of Shaviana." Professor Rodríguez Martín has published his work in journals such as SHAW, Babel, and The Yearbook of Phraseology, as well as the chapter "Language" in George Bernard Shaw in Context (2015). His most recent projects include a bilingual edition (English-Spanish) of Saint Joan and a monograph on Shaw’s dramatic language.