Shaw / Baziyan Candida & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7531-9756-2
Verlag: neobooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 590 Seiten

The selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play Candida contains 249 letters and entries, written between 1889 and 1950. The book represents a significant addition to modern-day understanding of Shaw's play Candida and reveals his thoughts on a wide variety of issues, love affairs und relationships with contemporaries. This publication from a revised edition Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant. By Bernard Shaw. The Second Vol-ume, containing the four Pleasant Plays published by Constable and Company Ltd., London: 1920 is a hand-made reproduction from the original edition, and remains as true to the original work as possible. The original edition was processed manually by means of a classic editing which ensures the quality of publications and the unrestricted enjoyment of reading. Here are some inspirational book quotes from Bernard Shaw: 'The play, which is called Candida, is the most fascinating work in the world.' 'I have written THE Mother Play-'Candida'-and I cannot repeat a masterpiece.' 'I shall never be able to begin a new play until I fall in love with somebody else.' 'I assure you in all unhumility I am the greatest dramatist of the XX century.' 'There is a Shaw boom on in Germany, because four of my plays have been produced in Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden and Frankfurt.' 'But I want the Germans to know me as a philosopher, as an English (or Irish) Nietzsche only ten times cleverer.' 'And remember that though we may be no bigger men than Goethe and Schiller, we are standing on their shoulders, and should therefore be able to see farther & do better. And after all, Schiller is only Shaw at the age of 8, and Goethe Shaw at the age of 32.' 'I am never wrong. Other people are sometimes-often-nearly always wrong, especially when they disagree with me; but I am omniscient and infallible.' 'Until within the last few months, when the success of Fraulein Agnes Sorma as Candida in Berlin was followed by an outbreak of Candidamania in New York, I had nothing to shew in the way of a successful play.' 'But everybody likes Candida. Wyndham drops a tear over Candida; Alexander wants the poet made blind so that he can play him with a guarantee of 'sympathy'; Mrs Pat wants to play Candida; Ellen Terry knows she is Candida; Candida is everybody's play except the utter groundlings.' 'But I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. I am a magnificently successful man myself, and so are my knot of friends but nobody knows it except we ourselves...' The book also includes an editor's note to German readers.

Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and influencer. Shaw is one of only two people in the world to have won both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shaw, Bernard

Baziyan, Vitaly

Leseproben

79/ To William Archer   26th April 1898   My dear Archer I wrote you a long letter about your Chronicle review [of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant]; but on looking over it I see nothing in it that would interest you except the postscript, which contains simple information, and an explanation of the ‘poet’s secret’ in ‘Candida,’ which will dry your tears. I knew that the book would simply mow down the critics. I pick my way daily through their corpses. I have to hop, by the way, because I have hurt my left—oh, I forgot: you saw my condition at the Globe. You really are the very blamedest dunderhead—explaining all the most exciting social phenomena of your time as mere aberrations of Shaw. I have just begun a new play—‘Caesar & Cleopatra.’ The Queen’s bodyguard, discoursing in the first act in the manner of [Victorien] Sardou’s butler & housemaid, has already given the most unexpected touches of local color to the scene.   GBS   PS By the way, did I tell you that I have sent in my notice to the Saturday? I shall drop dramatic criticism at the end of this season.       80/ William Archer to Bernard Shaw   30th April 1898   My dear Shaw If you really want to ‘mow down’ the critics, write a few more Candidas—that’s the way to do it. Anyone can achieve the triumph of being misunderstood; it is only the bungler (sometimes, no doubt, a bungler of genius) who makes a virtue of his limitations & pretends to aim at & rejoice in ‘mowing down’ people. I ask for nothing better than to have it proved that my analysis of your limitations is wrong, imperfect, founded on in-sufficient or misread evidence. It will cost me nothing, less than nothing, to confess it. But the evidence I want is good plays, not expositions of the excellence of your sociology (which I don’t doubt) or assertions that such and such a character is taken from such & such a real person. That I don’t doubt either; but the merit of a likeness depends not on whom it is meant for, but on whether it is like; and furthermore, a likeness may be very like & yet a shocking work of art, & especially out of place in a given dramatic picture.   [William Archer]       81/ To a British socialist, economist, reformer, co-founder of the London School of Economics, fellow Fabian and long-standing friend Sidney Webb   7th May 1898   [Dear Sidney Webb] . . . Charlotte [Frances Payne-Townshend later Mrs Bernard Shaw] came back five days ago, with a gigantic collection of documents concerning the Roman municipality. She found her position as my secretary usurped by Mrs [Catherine] Salt, who suits me very well, as I can bully her unlimitedly, because she has no idea how effective she is. Charlotte demanded her post back again; I insisted on her setting to work at once on the Roman report. She declined. So Mrs Salt went off to Kew Gardens for a holiday; and Charlotte had one delirious day of being dictated to. Then, as usual, Reason resumed her sway. Mrs Salt came back; and the Roman book is supposed to be now under way. The only question is, what form it should take. Her lady-like instincts strongly urge her to a dry official report for the use of students at the school. I, on the other hand, insist on a thrilling memoir, giving the whole history of a lady of quality [Charlotte] suffering from a broken heart (with full particulars) [by love affair with the Swedish doctor Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe in Rome] and being rescued from herself by the call of public work. The extent to which the call was reinforced by the renewed activity of the mended heart is to be described, and the whole is to conclude with the voyage to Italy, the adventures there among the old romantic associations, and, incidentally, a complete view, by glimpses, of the municipal humours of Rome. Charlotte sees dimly that the accomplishment of such a magnum opus would be indeed the conquest of a profession for herself, and consequent salvation; but she has got no further at present than arranging her materials. By the way, she got in, at the Executive election, with 200 votes, which was handsome. Wherry Anderson also effected a lodgment. He and W.M. [William Marcus] Thompson have organized a dinner to [Henry Mayers] Hyndman at the Cafe Monaco on the 11th May, ‘in recognition of his 25 years of Public Labour on behalf of the People.’ I have magnanimously taken a ticket, but cannot go, as I am engaged to Dilke for that evening. The occasion of this dinner is H.M.H. [Henry Mayers Hyndman]’s notification to all and sundry that he cannot go on with his provincial campaigning any longer. . . .  My confinement to the house is not altogether bad for work, and even the absolute cessation of gadding about except in cabs is turning out to be rather good physical economy. I am working at Caesar and Cleopatra, which will throw a new light on history, and on an explanatory pamphlet, to be published by Grant Richards, on Der Ring des Nibelungen, jam full of Socialism in the manner of [John] Ruskin. The Chronicle is working up sympathy here with America at a great rate. It is catching on rather, because England’s sentiment in the matter is based on a profound conviction that America is going to be the top dog in this conflict. The reviewing of my Plays has been going on with immense vigour; but I am absorbed in struggles with the Vestry, which has become so recalcitrant that I have at last thrown off the mask and attacked it in print, to its collective indignation and individual exultation. The thing goes on like this. Cunninghame Graham writes a letter to the Chronicle raising the question whether, as a dramatist, I am a pupil of [Henrik Johan] Ibsen or [Henri René Albert Guy] de Maupassant. I reply with a long letter, shewing that the real force which influences me is the attitude of the St Pancras Vestry on the question of providing free sanitary accommodation for women. This gives considerable piquancy to the correspondence, and has a most subduing effect on the Vestry. I will hand round your letter as instructed. You might get me the photographs of the Devil’s Disciple: I have received nothing but a portrait of Mrs Mansfield [née Beatrice Cameron] as Judith. I presume you have received the American edition of the Plays from Stone [and Company] of Chicago. They were published technically on the 15th April; but I do not know whether the real publication has taken place yet. The usual thing is for the American publisher to sell a single copy as a matter of form on the day of publication in England, but not to let it really loose until the most favourable season for publishing. I have not heard of [Sydney Haldane] Olivier yet. He may have come in the same ship as your letter. Do not trouble to write me letters while you are busy. Just send me post-cards with your addresses; and I will send you whatever news is going. I have the addresses up to 7th July at San Francisco.   G.B.S.   PS I had one dinner invitation from Kate [Salt], but hopped out of it on my bad foot. Also one from Dolly Stanley, to meet [George Washington] Cable [the author of] the The Grandissimes. To this I succumbed; adding that she [Lady Dorothy Stanley], was the original of Candida and I adored her. With this exception my life since you left has been blameless.       82/ Ellen Terry to Bernard Shaw   6th August 1899   I dont want to play Cleopatra particularly, but I particularly wanted the Play to be produced with the Henry-Irving-Lyceum-advantages! And when all is said and done, and I am nearly done, yet I should be your safest card for the part. I’m not so vain as you think me. Of course you never really meant Lady Cicely for me—but to be published along with other Plays. For delight I’d soonest act your Mrs Warren and Cleopatra. For money I’d choose your You Never Can Tell, The Devil’s D, and Candida—(properly acted). And so, and so, I am not to— Too tired to write, but shall be very well soon.   Yours “Silly Ellen”       83/ To Ellen Terry   8th August 1899   Oh you lie, Ellen, you lie: never was there a part so deeply written for a woman as this for you, silly, self-unconscious, will o’ the wisp beglamoured child actress as you still are. It is like offering the play to Kate. “Sir, I do not do this sort of thing. Take it to some ordinary leading lady—I believe there is a person named [Mrs Patrick] Campbell, or is it [Madge] Kendal?—whom it might suit. My line is romantic tragedy, supported by Mr Fechter. Your offering it to me shews a complete misunderstanding of my rank as an artist. I expected something better from you. Classic language at least instead of this vulgar colloquialism; but—but no matter. Good morning.” Lyceum [Theatre] advantages! Havnt you had enough of them yet? You talk to me, Me, ME, of this ogre’s den into which your talent has been thrown and eaten. Go then, wretch, and get Comyns Carr and [Alfred Cecil] Calmour to write you some nice new part with a name like the latest hairwash, and be as romantic and picturesque as you please, and bury what reality there is in...