George Bernard Shaw Resources
George Bernard Shaw Resources
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a prolific writer who worked as an art, music, and theater critic. Irish-born and largely self-educated, he found his calling writing popular plays, including Pygmalion and Saint Joan. Throughout his life he actively participated in politics and social criticism. A member of the Fabian society virtually from its inception, Shaw’s politics can be described as socialist, though he in truth he was far more influenced by the writings of Karl Marx than was typical of socialists in the nineteenth century. This infatuation with Marxism led him to a fundamental belief in the power of the state, a belief evinced by his admiration and support for dictators of all stripes, from Mussolini to Stalin. Shaw was a great friend of G. K. Chesterton, despite widely differing worldviews.
You may enjoy learning more about Shaw by exploring the materials listed below.
George Bernard Shaw,
1934, Davart Company
“How to Write a Popular Play” by George Bernard Shaw
“Shaw and the Don: George Bernard Shaw’s Reception of Mozart’s Don Giovanni“
The Humor of G.B. Shaw and G.K. Chesterton
Bernard Shaw: A Brief Biography by Cary Mazer
George Bernard Shaw Biography by Archibald Henderson
Shaw’s contemporaries included T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, among many others.
***
When will you read George Bernard Shaw’s writing in Excellence in Literature?
