George Bernard Shaw

Lore & Background

Shaw was born in Dublin, the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw. His father was an ineffectual alcoholic, and the family lived in shabby-genteel poverty. Shaw found solace in music, which abounded in the house due to his mother's association with George John Lee, a conductor and teacher. He attended four schools between 1865 and 1871, all of which he hated, and left at age fifteen to work as a junior clerk. In 1876 he moved to London, where he initially struggled as a writer and embarked on a rigorous self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. He joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. His first public success as a playwright came with Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he introduced a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas.

Reader's Guide

Shaw's significance lies in his transformation of English-language drama through intellectual rigor and social commentary. He wrote more than sixty plays, blending contemporary satire with historical allegory, and became the leading dramatist of his generation. His expressed views were often contentious: he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, opposed vaccination and organised religion, and denounced both sides in the First World War. In the inter-war years he wrote favourably of dictatorships of the right and left, expressing admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. Despite these stances, his standing as a dramatist remained undiminished. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion, for which he received an Academy Award. He refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since his death, scholarly opinion has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare, and the word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating his ideas and means of expressing them.

Did You Know?

• Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
• He provided the screenplay for the 1938 filmed version of Pygmalion, for which he received an Academy Award.
• He refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946.
• The word 'Shavian' has entered the language to describe his ideas and style.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it..." — George Bernard Shaw "Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it..." — George Bernard Shaw "No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means; and I have no reason to hope that Mr Coote may be an exception to the rule." — George Bernard Shaw "My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity." — George Bernard Shaw