Biography Show Bernard
Bernard Shaw is an outstanding English playwright, one of the founders of a realistic
drama of the 20th century, a talented satirist, a humorist. His work enjoys well-deserved
reputation and is of universal interest. In our literary studies, a whole
science about the creativity of Bernard Shaw was created. Its foundations were laid by A. V. Lunacharsky, who displayed a
deep and sympathetic interest in the searches, contradictions and creative originality of the
writer. Recently, Soviet scientists have defended a number of doctoral and candidate
dissertations on the work of B. Shaw and published a number of books, including a thoroughly
commented volume of the letters of the playwright (1971), his statements about drama and theater (1963)
, the book of AG Obraztsova about his theatrical and directorial activity (1974). Great is the merit of
writing about the work of B. Shaw Soviet researchers A. Anikst, P. Balashov, I. />
Kantorovich. Several books devoted to Bernard Shaw, his dramaturgic method and his
influence on the English and European theater AG Obraztsov. In England, the name of Bernard Shaw stands
in line with the name of William Shakespeare, although Shaw was born three hundred years later than his
predecessor. Both of them made an invaluable contribution to the development of the national theater of England,
and the creativity of each of them became known far beyond their homeland. After experiencing its
highest flowering in the Renaissance, the English drama rose to new heights only
with the arrival of Bernard Shaw. He is the only, worthy companion of Shakespeare; he is
rightfully considered the creator of modern English drama. Continuing the best traditions of
English drama, and having absorbed the experience of the greatest masters of the contemporary theater –
Ibsen and Chekhov – Shaw’s work opens a new page in the literature of the twentieth century.
The main weapon of his struggle with social injustice Shaw chooses laughter. This
truth,” these words of Bernard Shaw help to understand the originality of his accusatory laughter, which has been
sounding loudly from the stage of the stage for the past century. Bernard Shaw was born in 1856.
in Ireland in Dublin. Throughout the XIX century. “Green Island”, as they called Ireland,
boiled. There was a liberation struggle. Ireland sought independence from
England. Her people lived in poverty, but did not want to endure enslavement. In the atmosphere of grief and anger
experienced by his homeland, the childhood and youth of the future writer flowed. Shaw’s parents
came from an environment of impoverished nobility. The life of the family was unsettled and unfriendly.
Deprived of practical veins, the constantly drunk father did not succeed in his chosen business – the
grain trade. Mother Shaw – a woman of outstanding musical abilities – was forced
to support herself with her family. She sang in concerts, and later earned a living lessons
music. Little attention was paid to children in the family; There was no money to educate them
. But according to their moods and views, Shaw’s parents are to the advanced
patriotic-minded layers of the Dublin society. They did not adhere to
religious dogmas and raised their children free-thinking atheists. The main merit
in this belonged to Shaw’s mother, whose character was not broken by an unsuccessfully developed
family life. Shaw studied at the Dublin school, but stay in it was not for him
particularly joyful. It is not by chance that he later wrote: “At school I did not learn anything and I
forgot much.” However, the school course was not completed by him either. At the age of fifteen, he began
make money for living. He served small in a land office. I collected a rent
from the inhabitants of the poor quarters of Dublin. He learned the life of the urban slums well. By the time he was
twenty, Shaw had been promoted to senior cashier. It was not a little, but by that time
Shaw’s interests had already been determined. They
had nothing in common with the official career of an official. Shaw was deeply interested in art – literature, painting, music. In 1876,
Shaw left Ireland and moved to London. Certain classes he did not have, there was no
environment for survival, but the range of his interests and cultural requests was very wide. He
was fond of theater, under the pseudonym Corneau de Bosseto publishes his first musical
review, and then in the course of several years, appears in the press as a music critic. The show was
not only a connoisseur of music, but also played great. His name becomes well
known in the theater circles of London. Shaw never separated art from his
inherent interest in the socio-political life of his time. He attends
meetings of social democrats, takes part in debates, persistently develops the
skills of the speaker, reads with great interest and deep interest the “Capital” of Marx – a work that,
in his own words, was a revelation for him. Shaw’s interest in the actual
problems of our time was felt in his earliest works. In the period from 1879 to
1883g. Shaw wrote five novels: “Immaturity,” “Unreasonable Marriage,” “Love of Artists,
” “The Profession of Cachile Byron,” and “Socialist-Single.” In those years, Shaw’s novels were not
recognized. The beginning writer had to endure a long and unequal
combat with numerous publishers. He received only refusals, but did not give up.
Innovator by nature, Shaw and in the novel sought to introduce something new. Novels Shaw
testified to the inherent skill of the playwright, who was still waiting for the occasion to
be revealed. In novels, it manifested itself in a distinctly pronounced inclination towards a
dialogized form, in brilliantly constructed dialogues, which in all
the works without exception Shaw belongs to the main place.
Fabian society, soon after its creation. It was a social reformist
organization, striving to guide the workers’ movement. The task of the members of the
Fabian Society was to study the foundations of socialism and the ways of transition to it. As a
genuine innovator, Shaw spoke in the field of drama. He approved in the English theater a new
type of drama – an intellectual drama in which the main place belongs not to intrigue, not to the
fascinating plot, but to the intense disputes, witty verbal fights
that his characters lead. Shaw called his plays “play-discussions.” They seized the
depth of problems, an extraordinary form of their resolution; they excited the viewer’s consciousness,
forced him to think hard about what is happening and laugh merry with the
playwright over the absurdity of existing laws, customs, morals. The beginning of the
dramatic activity of the show was connected with the “Independent Theater”, which opened in
1891 in London. Its founder was the famous English director Jacob Grain.
The main task, which put Greene before him, was to acquaint the
English viewer with modern dramaturgy. “Independent Theater” contrasted the
flow of entertainment plays that filled the repertoire of most English theaters of those
years, the drama of great ideas. On his stage, many plays were staged by Ibsen, Chekhov,
Tolstoy, Gorky. For the “Independent Theater”
“Unpleasant plays”
Shaw begins his own way with a play cycle, combined under the title
“Unpleasant plays.” These included: “Widow’s Home”, which Shaw began working on in 1885,
“The Profession of Mrs. Warren” and “Volokita.” In his preface to “Unpleasant Plays,” Shaw
wrote: “… the power of dramatic art in these plays should make the viewer come face
to face with unpleasant facts.” Undoubtedly, every author who sincerely desires the blessings of
mankind does not consider with monstrous opinion that The task of literature
is flattery, but in these dramas we come across not only comedy and tragedy of an
individual character and the destiny of an individual, but also with terrible and
disgusting aspects of the social order. The horror of this relationship lies in the
fact that an average Englishman, a man who may even dream of a
thousand-year-old kingdom of grace, turns out to be a
criminal citizen in his public manifestations, closing his eyes to the most vile ones for the most horrible
abuses, if their elimination threatens to lose him at least one penny of their
income. “In” Unpleasant plays “in front of us seem to be quite respectable respectable
English bourgeois, who possess considerable capital and lead a quiet
arranged life. tranquility is deceptive. It conceals behind itself such phenomena as
exploitation, as a dirty, dishonest enrichment of the bourgeois at the expense of poverty and misfortunes
simple people. Before the eyes of readers and spectators of Shaw’s plays, there are pictures of the
injustice, cruelty and meanness of the bourgeois world. It is characteristic that the Shaw plays
begin with the traditional pictures of the everyday life of a bourgeois family. But, as it usually
happens in Ibsen’s dramas, the moment comes when the social
aspect of the deeply disturbing writer comes to the fore : where are the sources of the heroes’ wealth? on what
means they live? how did they manage to achieve their well-being in which they
live? Bold posing of these questions and no less answers to them form the basis of
the expository power of Shaw’s plays, which outraged some and could not but impress and not
admire others.
“Pleasant plays”
The second cycle of Bernard Shaw’s plays was “Pleasant Pieces.” These included: “War and Man,” ”
Candida,” “Chosen of Destiny,” “You Can not Tell”. In “Pleasant Pieces” Shaw
changes the methods of satirical denunciation. If in “Unpleasant plays” he turned to
“the terrible and disgusting aspects of the social order”, angrily attacked the
social order, in “Pleasant plays” he pays much attention to that hypocritical
morality that is designed to hide the true essence of bourgeois relations. In these plays, the Shaw
aims to throw off those romantic covers that hide the cruel truth of
reality.
sticky web of prejudices, obsolete traditions, delusions and empty illusions. And if in
“Unpleasant plays”, creating images of Sartorius, Crofts and trying to emphasize the
cruelty, inhumanity of these people, Shaw willingly turned to the reception of the grotesque, the characters of
his “Pleasant plays” are much more “human people” and in their depiction there is no deliberate
sharpness and sharpening. But at the same time, the wretchedness of the spiritual world of the bourgeois, the persistent
bias of his judgments, perverted ideas, hiding under a
respectable appearance, callousness and selfishness-all this is shown with great
penetration into the very essence of bourgeois ideology. In the title – “Pleasant plays”
– it sounds quite frank irony.
“
Another cycle of plays “Plays for Puritans” was created in the period from 1897 to 1899. This includes the plays
“Devil’s Apprentice”, “Caesar and Cleopatra”, “The Appeal of Captain Brassbund.”
Shaw explains the meaning of the title of the collection in the preface to “Pieces for the Puritans”. He contrasts his
plays with dramatic works, in which the main interest is focused on love
intrigue and eroticism. This does not mean that Shaw is alien to the image of feelings, but he does not want to
recognize that the basis of man’s actions is only love impulses. “I’m a Puritan
in views on art,” he says, “I sympathize with feelings, but I believe that the substitution by
sensual ecstasy of all intellectual activity, and honesty, is the greatest
evil. “Shaw seeks to show the diversity of forms of human activity,
contrasting the widely understood duty and responsibility to narrowly selfish
impulses and blind sensuality. The Shou Puritanism is associated with the heroic Puritan
traditions of the era of the English Revolution, the era of Cromwell and Milton
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