Bernard Shaw as A Dramatist: A General Estimate

Abstract

“In other words, his mind and pen were to be free, but his body and his person had to live in the world.” – (Dickinson)

Shaw proclaimed himself to be a rationalist, a realist and an anti – romantic. His plays have seldom gained popularity or even general reception in theater, and his plays couldn’t stand on their own feet without explanation or glossary. His plays were both more or less than plays. They were less in that they needed prefaces, expanded stage-directions, and characterization to fulfill their meaning. Shaw had made it his business to subject every accepted value, custom, tradition or faith to satirical treatment. From his earliest youth, he had been an advocate of revolt, but revolt rationalized and made secure by common sense. Here lies the first key to Shaw’s obvious inconsistency. An absolutist in mental processed; he was a realist in action. 

 Introduction: Shaw has been most understood or most variously understood. While for Evans considers him as the greatest English dramatist after Shakespeare. T.H. Dickinson says, “Whatever Shaw is, he is not primarily a dramatist.” Before he started writing of plays he had expressed himself as lecturer, writer on social and economics topics, novelist and critics. They are more in that after the purposes of demonstration are satisfied, the author goes on to serve other purposes which lie in the field of description and argument.