Shaw / Baziyan Widowers' Houses & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7541-7438-8
Verlag: neobooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 448 Seiten

The selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play Widowers' Houses contains 160 letters and entries written between 1885 and 1933. This publication from a revised edition Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant. The First Volume, Contain-ing the Three Unpleasant Plays (Widowers' Houses, The Philandered, & Mrs Warren's Profession) published by Constable and Company Ltd, London 1919 is a handmade 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: 'I do not hesitate to say that many of my critics have been completely beaten by the play simply because they are ignorant of society.' 'Now, the didactic object of my play is to produce conviction of sin, to make the Pharisee who repudiates Sartorius as either a Harpagon [a character of a comedy The Miser by the French playwright Molière] or a diseased dream of mine, and thanks God that such persons do not represent his class, recognize that Sartorius is his own photograph.' 'These gentlemen believe that, according to me, what is wrong with society is that the rich, who are all wicked, oppress the poor, who are all virtuous. I will not waste the space of The Star by dealing with such a misconception further than to curtly but goodhumoredly inform those who entertain it that they are fools.' 'Unfortunately I have no power of producing beauty: my genius is the genius of intellect, and my farce its derisive brutality.'

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

Wrote some letters and sent off the last revises of Widowers’ Houses marked “press.” Also finished and sent the advertisement sheets to Henry and Co. By that time it was nearly four o’clock. I dined at the café opposite Portland Rd. station and went to see FE [Florence Emery]; but she was out. I walked back to Queens Rd. Bayswater and took bus to Holborn. Had tea alone with Archer who walked with me as far as Waterloo Place on my way to the National Liberal Club. I did not speak there, except to ask a question. Wrote a few letters.   Dinner at Menegallo’s 2/— Papers 1d Lavatory 1d Train to Shepherds Bush & back 9d Bus Queen’s Rd to Oxford O 2d Oxford St to Holborn 1d       59/ To William Archer   27th March 1893   I am writing to [Jacob Thomas “Jack”] Grein to alter the advertisement of the 2nd vol. of the I.T. series [Independent Theatre book series of plays] on the ground that you are resolved not to have any other play in the same book with ‘A Visit.’ I suppose that is all right. I am also writing to [George] Moore asking him whether he is still bent on taking ‘The Strike’ to Scott. About that first act, I am prepared to admit that it is no great shakes, except that Cokane is a creation, and my one French critic was right when he said that ‘la composition de cette lettre à laquelle Sartorius est appelé à collaborer pendant que les deux amoureux s’en vont reflirter dans le fond du jardin, constitue une scène de réelle et bonne comédie, au dialogue piquant et serré.’ Your objection to both is bad taste pure and simple; but as for the rest I do not press its excellence, provided you allow for the inevitable postponement of the glimpse of the under world to the second act caused by your own insistence on my beginning on the Rhine. ‘Tu l’as voulu, George Dandin.’   GBS       60/ Bernard Shaw’s diary 5th April 1893   Did not feel inclined to work hard; so did some pasting into scrap book; to begin; and then drafted a circular letter to be sent by Henry and Co., about Widowers’ Houses to several press correspondents, of whom I made a list of 50. Then walked to the Strand to buy a Fortnightly Review. Then off, to FE [Florence Emery]. We took a walk and discovered Perivale Church [Perivale St. Andrews would be the name of Undershaft’s factory town in Major Barbara] and heard an extra-ordinary performance by a nightingale close to Ealing on our way back..; Wrote to Henry and Co. a second time when I got back in reply to their objection to mention other publishers in their advertisements of my other works in Widowers’ Houses.   Fortnightly Review 2/— Dinner at Orange Grove 1/3 Train Ch[arin]g + to Ravenscourt Pk 6d Ravenscourt Pk to Ealing Common (2) 1/4 Westiminsted Gaziettel 1d Almonds3d , Ealing to Ealing Common (2) 4d Shepherds Bush to Portland Rd 6d       61/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 20th May 1893   Wrote several letters, notably one to [James] Welch about his proposals to get Widowers’ Houses played at the East End. Corrected proof of World article. Then went out to Ealing and spent the rest of the day with the [Pakenham Thomas Beatty] Beattys. Came back by the 22.20 train, getting out at Gloucester Rd. and walking home across the Park.   Papers 1d Dinner at Orange Grove 1/3 Train Charing + to Ealing (return) 1/2       62/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 21st May 1893   Wrote some letters, especially one to [Arthur Bingham] Walkley about his Star notice of Widowers’ Houses. Then rushed off to Hammersmith, not getting there until past 14. May was at the Terrace alone, [Henry Halliday] Sparling being in France. Spooner called in the afternoon whilst we were sitting out in the garden. He stayed until after 17, when May [Mrs Sparling née Morris] and I walked to Richmond by way of Strand on the Green, Kew Gardens and the towpath. We came back by train and I played Die Walküre [by Richard Wagner] to her after tea. I slept at the Terrace.   Train to Hammersmith (return not used) 10d Richmond to Ravenscourt Pk (2) 1/2       63/ Bernard Shaw’s article “The Author to the Dramatic Critics” printed as an appendix to the Independent Theatre’s publication of Widowers’ Houses   May 1893   Fellow critics It is one of my advantages that I can discuss criticism, not merely as an author, but as a critic. I have no illusions about critics being authors who have failed. I know, as one who has practised both crafts, that authorship is child’s play compared to criticism; and I have, you may depend upon it, my full share of the professional instinct which regards the romancer as a mere adventurer in literature, and the critic as a highly skilled workman. Ask any novelist or dramatist whether he can write a better novel or play than I; and he will blithely say Yes. Ask him to take my place as critic for one week; and he will blench from the test. The truth is that the critic stands between popular authorship, for which he is not silly enough, and great authorship, for which he has not genius enough. It is certainly true that the status of popular author is much coveted by critics; but that is because the popular author is much better paid for much easier work. [William Makepeace] Thackeray, like many other eminent authors, coveted a government sinecure; but nobody therefore supposes that authors are merely unsuccessful sinecurists, or that a well paid post in the civil service would have been intellectually a promotion for Thackeray. He who publishes a critical essay well knows how few care to read such things; whereas some donkey of an author, with the imagination of a schoolboy, or some sentimental young lady perhaps, will turn out a story too absurd to be thinkable by an ordinarily competent critic, and yet have it bought by scores and hundreds of thousands of readers of fiction. It is the natural desire to wallow in the profits of romantic makebelieve instead of toiling for the scanty wages of “the intolerable fatigue of thought” that drives the critic to envy the author. You will now feel, fellow critics, that in turning dramatist I have not turned traitor. It is for the honor of our guild that I venture to suggest that even in the intellectual department the authors are getting ahead of us. I do not wish to rake up the case of [Henrik Johan] Ibsen and his Ghosts again: I think it will be admited now that the most oldfashioned school for young ladies in the country would have made almost as good a job of that discussion as we did. It was not a question of our liking Ibsen or not liking him, agreeing with him or not agreeing with him. Whichever way our bias lay it was our business to analyse his position skilfully and pronounce on it coolly. Under no circumstances should we have forgotten ourselves so far as to scold at him and cry Fie! like a bevy of illiterate prudes. This, however, is what too many of us did; and now, since what is done cannot be undone, we had better put up a few posts to warn future critics off the dangerous places where we come to grief oftenest. The first warning I propose is: Do not let us raise the cry of “Ibsen” whenever we find a modern idea in a play. See what it has led to in the following passages culled from criticisms—some of them friendly and able ones—of Widowers’ Houses. “As an ardent admirer of Ibsen’s methods, he has not scrupled to follow the method of that writer to extremes.” Daily Telegraph. “The lesson is trite in the case of creeds that the disciple not seldom distances the master. Ibsen has justly been charged,” &c., &c. The Athenæum. “The London Ibsen. One can see that all this is meant to be exceedingly Ibsenesque.” Sunday Sun. “I really think it is time the Independent Theatre Society made an effort to secure a play that is not moulded on the lines laid down by the great and only Ibsen.” Pelican. “Mr Shaw is a zealous Ibsenite.” Weekly Dispatch. “A rather silly play by a rather clever man, which may be either worship or satire of Ibsenius the Great.” Saturday Review. “Mr Shaw is the high priest, one may say, of Ibsenism.” Piccadilly. “Like all the Ibsenians he ruins his argument,” &c. Modern Society. “Mr Shaw is an Ibsenite and is consequently quite up to date.”...