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    File: \DP\0192\01926.TXT         Thu May 19 22:15:56 1994
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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Works of G. B. Shaw
Critical Commentary On George Bernard Shaw}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Shaw, George Bernard}
$Affiliation{Department Of English, Hunter College}
$Subject{shaw
shaw's
plays
play
bernard
critics
ideas
pygmalion
higgins
eliza}
$Date{}
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Title:       Works of G. B. Shaw
Book:        Pygmalion
Author:      Shaw, George Bernard
Critic:      Schwartz, Grace Horowitz
Affiliation: Department Of English, Hunter College

Critical Commentary On George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion.

     Ever since its original productions (it opened in seven different
European capitals in various translations, after which it enjoyed a hugely
successful production in London in 1914), Pygmalion has been one of Bernard
Shaw's most popular plays. Not only have there been numerous stage productions
of the play, but a film in 1938 and the overwhelmingly successful musical
comedy adaptation of the 1950s My Fair Lady give evidence of its great
vitality. Today more people are probably acquainted with Pygmalion in some
form than with any other play by Shaw. Even Shaw's masterpiece, the towering
Saint Joan, does not rival it in this respect.

     Most critics agree that Pygmalion is a delightfully amusing,
well-constructed comedy. Beyond this, their views diverge.

     St. John Ervine, the Irish playwright, a friend and biographer of Shaw,
judges that Pygmalion is not one of Shaw's major plays. He feels that its
subject does not excite deep interest. Most audiences are not greatly
impressed by the need for an improved alphabet. Yet Ervine gives credit to the
play for its entertainment value. In other words, Ervine is one representative
of those critics who find Pygmalion and amusing play but not an important one.

     Ervine's opinion, of course, is based on his idea that the play is about
the improvement of speech and the usefulness of a reformed alphabet in
improving it. If the play is only about this, we may possibly agree that the
play is trivial, that in it Shaw is concerned with a hobby that has a special
interest for him but is of less concern to the majority of other people.

     Yet we must note that some critics find a deeper theme in Pygmalion. Eric
Bentley, in his study Bernard Shaw, finds in Pygmalion the story of the
creation of an independent human being. In Acts II and III, Higgins makes a
duchess of Eliza (although an imperfect one). In Acts IV and V, Eliza, moving
from resentment to independence, makes a free woman of herself. Martin Meisel,
author of the analytical study, Shaw and the Nineteenth Century Theater,
regards the play as a radical attack on class distinction and class prejudice.
He points out Eliza's final understanding that a flower girl and a duchess are
distinguished from each other, not by their behavior., but by the way they are
treated. Higgins carries this idea to a more far-reaching conclusion. He
treats all women alike. He does not condescend to treat a flower girl a
duchess; he treats duchesses like flower girls, thus destroying the whole
notion of particular courtesy being due to certain people.

     Archibald Henderson, who is considered to be the authoritative
biographer of Shaw as well as an important critic of his work, also believes
that Pygmalion is a statement of the idea that class barriers are artificial
and must be broken down.

     Another aspect of the play which has caused critical disagreement is its
ending. Critics do not agree on what Shaw means the ending to be. They also
do not agree on whether the present ending is suitable.

     Many critics see the ending in the light of Shaw's concluding essay.
They assume that Eliza must be walking out of Higgins' control and into
Freddy's arms when she leaves Mrs. Higgins' drawing room. St. John Ervine
is distressed by this possibility. He states his own conviction that Higgins
marries Eliza, which is surely a tribute to the vitality and appeal of Shaw's
characters. Ervine discusses them almost as if they were real people with a
life of their own.

     Eric Bentley accepts Eliza's marriage to Freddy. But to him her
marriage is unimportant. The important thing is that she fights free of
Higgins and becomes independent.

     Martin Meisel is conscious of the difference between the ending of the
play itself and the events described in Shaw's essay. Meisel points out that
the play ends in a purposely ambiguous way. Shaw's flat statement that Freddy
married Eliza came later and was provoked by the behavior of Sir Herbert
Beerbohm Tree, who acted Higgins as a lovesick suitor in Act V. Meisel feels
the ambiguity of the play is preferable to the definiteness of the essay. The
point is that Eliza is now free to choose; whom she chooses is less important.

     Arthur Nethercot gives still another interpretation of the ending in
Men and Supermen: The Shavian Portrait Gallery. He feels Eliza's major
concern is marriage. She wants to marry Higgins, but when she sees that
Higgins is not a marrying man, she turns to Freddy, though he is a far less
worthwhile person. This is a practical, sensible decision, but not idealistic.
Nethercot refers to Eliza's choice of Freddy as "Philistine." She is pursuing
woman who takes what she can as a husband.

     To summarize, Shaw's play Pygmalion is considered by some critics to be
a fairly unimportant comedy about speech improvement, while others see in
it a significant attack on the absurdity of class distinction. All critics
agree that it is an expert and amusing play. Most critics accept Shaw's essay
on the ultimate marriage of Eliza and Freddy. But as Martin Meisel has pointed
out, the play itself ends ambiguously. Some critics want to pair off Eliza and
Higgins in marriage. Others feel that who Eliza marries does not matter to the
theme of the play.

General Remarks.

     There has been a great deal of criticism written about the life, work
and thought of George Bernard Shaw. His career was long; he was exposed
to criticism for over half a century during his own lifetime, and since his
death in 1950, the commentary has continued. There is almost no drama critic
who has not had his chance to write something about Bernard Shaw, for
productions of Shaw's plays are unceasing. It is surprising that so little of
this criticism is really intelligent or enlightening. It is well known that
much criticism of Shaw is weak; Eric Bentley remarks upon this in his valuable
short book, Bernard Shaw.

     What are the reasons for this? Why is the criticism of Shaw less
intelligent as a whole than the criticism of Shakespeare, for instance,
when Shakespeare is a more puzzling and more intricate writer than Shaw?

     One reason may well be Shaw's deceptive simplicity. He tries to write
his plays very clearly, and often he even goes on to explain his purposes
all over again in prefaces. Therefore, numerous critics of limited ability
are very sure that they understand Shaw. But Shaw is not simple, even though
he tries to be clear. In the first place, some of his theories are
complicated. It is easy to understand them in a general way, but much harder
to absorb all the details. Then too, it may be that Shaw could not explain
himself completely, and like many great creative artists, he had certain
qualities that he was unaware of himself. Thus, though he could explain what
he meant to do, he could not always explain what he actually did do. A second
factor is the anger Shaw arouses in many critics. They are troubled by his
ideas and resentful of his self-confident and stinging expression of them.
Anger and prejudice do not make a good basis for objective study. (Indeed,
it is to be hoped that students will be the superiors of their elders in
this. If Bernard Shaw expresses an opinion contrary to what a student
believes, the student should remain calm, keep his mind open, and respect
Shaw's opinion even if he cannot agree with it. This will often happen, for
nobody accepts everything Shaw says, and some people accept very little of it.
Above all, he should not fail to appreciate Shaw's writing because he happens
to be unsympathetic to some of Shaw's thinking.)

Shaw's Ideas:

     Critical writing about Bernard Shaw usually discusses one or more of the
following subjects: his ideas, his talent as a playwright, his writing style,
and his life. The reader should try to be aware of any prejudices a critic
may have as he reads. This is especially true of discussion about ideas.
However, antagonism to Shaw's ideas sometimes affects other discussions,
about his plays or his life, for instance.

     Shaw's thinking is radical. His ideas on religion, sex, marriage,
government, and money are therefore likely to startle or offend people
who hold conservative views on any of these subjects. For example, St. John
Ervine, an Irish playwright and a friend of Shaw, spends a great deal of space
in his biography of Shaw (Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends) explaining
why Shaw's socialism is wrong. He is especially concerned with the sameness
and regimentation that socialism might create if it were to replace the
capitalist economic system. He distrusts the mass of humanity. He is least
friendly to those plays which have a large political or economic factor, such
as Major Barbara and The Apple Cart.

     Another man who was friendly with Shaw personally but critical of his
ideas was Gilbert K. Chesterton. His book, George Bernard Shaw (1909), was one
of the earliest studies of Shaw and his work, and as a result of Chesterton's
own fine mind and witty expression, it is still one of the best. The book
combines affectionate appreciation of Shaw's honesty, seriousness and
independence with distress at the way Shaw rejects the usual ideas about sin
and guilt, for Chesterton had a deeply religious nature himself and
eventually became a Roman Catholic.

     Shaw's discussions of sex have always created enemies. In the
beginning of his career he was thought too outspoken; and early play, Mrs.
Warren's Profession, completely broke the rules of censorship and could not
be produced. Later the opposite was true. Certain writers who looked upon the
sexual impulse as the basis of human behavior were shocked because Shaw felt
that certain other parts of life (work, devotion to human betterment) were
more important than sex. Among these writers were D. H. Lawrence and Frank
Harris. They found him and his work lacking in sexuality and therefore
incomplete. The American drama critic George Jean Nathan wrote an essay
published in 1931 which lists all the places in his plays where the
characters show a distrust or a dislike of sex. Pygmalion is mentioned. This
essay is probably the least thoughtful expression of the idea of sex in
Shaw's writing. It is reprinted by Louis Kronenberger in George Bernard Shaw:
A Critical Survey.

     There are also segments of Shaw's thought which are regarded by almost
everyone as eccentric or wrongheaded. For example, his ideas on medicine seem
cranky rather than critical. He does not have very much respect for the idea
of germs. He is violently opposed to vaccination against smallpox. Then, too,
some of his ideas are easy to make fun of, though on careful consideration,
there is nothing silly about them. Shaw was a vegetarian. When he was in
his forties, his health became poor for a while, and doctors told him it was
absolutely necessary to begin eating meat. Shaw refused. He could not bring
himself to eat the flesh of slaughtered fellow creatures. He wrote at the time
that, if he did die, his funeral procession would consist of oxen, sheep,
poultry, and even fish, all mourning the man who would rather die than eat
them.

     The gentle humor of the passage is touching. Looking back, one must
respect the personal habits of a man who lived to be ninety-four years old.
But it was easy for a critic who wanted to get an easy laugh in Shaw's
lifetime to say that his plays would improve if he ate steak.

     We may say, then, that comments on Bernard Shaw as a thinker range from
the thoughtfully critical to the crudely hostile. But there are also writers
who give a more balanced view of Shaw's ideas. A careful explanation may be
found in Eric Bentley's Bernard Shaw.

Shaw The Playwright:

     Discussion of Shaw as play-wright usually concerns his character
portrayals. Most commentators agree on the liveliness and wit of the
conversation in the plays, but they argue about whether the characters
themselves are convincing human beings. Some critics claim that the
characters do not have the complexity and warmth of real people. They are only
types, or representations of ideas, rather than human beings. Archibald
Henderson, the author of the most important biography of Shaw, believes this.
He calls Shaw's characters "intellectual abstractions." Other critics feel
that, while Shaw's characters are not absolutely realistic, Shaw is able
to create a convincing manner of thought and speech for each of them. St. John
Ervine says of Shaw's dialogue that it has "the rich tone of an unusual mind
and yet is faithful to the nature of the people who speak it."

     Homer E. Woodbridge, in George Bernard Shaw, Creative Artist, writes of
the immense vividness of Shaw's portraits. He says that in Shaw's plays there
is a group of unforgettable people who have become a living part of our
literary heritage. Higgins, Eliza, and Alfred Doolittle are examples.

     Some critics have also discussed the structure of Shaw's plays. Shaw
himself pointed out in the preface to Caesar and Cleopatra that there is
nothing new about the structure of his plays. He tells old stories in familiar
ways. Only his ideas make his plays new.

     Most critics agree with Shaw's own estimate. But to this they add the
comment that even if Shaw's plays are not revolutionary, they are very
competently put together. By this they mean that the plays tend to have a
beginning, a middle, and an end, and that they move along at a quick pace with
many interesting changes of mood and feeling. Only in his last plays did Shaw
let his interest in ideas make his plays slow-moving and somewhat
disorganized.

     A useful study of Shaw with emphasis on dramatic structure is C.B.
Purdom's A Guide to the Plays of Bernard Shaw. Purdom analyzes the fine points
of structure in the plays.

Shaw's Style:

     Critical comment and Shaw's writing style is overwhelmingly favorable. A
few people do object to the sledge hammer forcefulness with which Shaw pounds
home his ideas. Once critic says that there are no lyrical (poetic) passages
in Shaw's plays. But almost every serious critic in his own way expresses
admiration for Shaw's prose, which sounds simple, but which actually is a
triumph of economy, clarity, and strength.

     Eric Bentley remarks that to understand how much more than "simple Shaw's
writing is, you need only see an ordinary Hollywood movie and a movie of a
Shaw play in the same day. The flabbiness and flatness of the first give a
clue to the control and force of the second. The modern poet W. H. Auden
compares Shaw's writing to the music of Rossini, the great Italian composer
of comic opera who wrote The Barber of Seville. Shaw has, he says, the same
tunefulness, humor, vivacity and clarity in his words as the master composer
has in his music.

