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So
do we say that Bernard Shaw was a self made man? If so, then he
did so well for himself that we now have a word in his name. To be
Shavian, you would have to have all the brilliant qualities that
he had. He had a sparkling wit and a penchant for creating
controversies; he was a pundit with an insatiable appetite for
knowledge, a showman who spoke his views in public fearlessly and
last but not the least a dramatist whose plays reflected each and
every aspect of his personality.
Given his
background of broken family, many of his works invariably focused
on dysfunctional families and homes. And quite often the theme
reflected the child’s point of view. Children are not bound to
unquestioningly obey and love their parents was his contention.
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George Bernard Shaw |
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Having tried
living with one parent, Shaw left his father and moved in with his mother
in London in 1876. Warm, fed and having a roof over his head at her
expense, he followed his heart’s wish, that of writing. He tried his
hand at prose and his first novel titled Immaturity
emerged. A reflection of
himself at that stage of his life, one would wonder. He wrote four more
novels before even one was published. Having a voracious appetite for
reading, he devoured books at the British Museum Library. |
Shaw’s next
step, politics, was inevitable as he had passionate views on the goings on
in the country. His early
attempts at public speaking, which undoubtedly must have honed his oratory
skills, were in parks and street corners. And as it happens all this was
reflected in his writings.
Bernard Shaw
was totally caught up with the idea of socialism. He wanted Britain to
become a socialist state, peacefully with systematic legislation. Towards
this aim, he along with Beatrice and Sidney Webb gave birth to the Fabian
Society. The foundation for the Labour Party was laid, for it was this
society that later founded the London School of Economics and the Labour
party. Shaw’s contribution to the Fabian Society included lectures,
writing informative pieces that were distributed as pamphlets and any
other activity that would further the cause of the society.
Notable
writings for the society were The
Perfect Wagnerite and The
Quintessence of Ibsenism. His writings also encompassed critical
reviews about music, theatre and art. For
these, he preferred using either his initials GBS or a pseudonym - Corno
di Bassetto. His reviews were collected and organized into several volumes
- Music In London 1890-1894 (3
vols. 1931); Pen Portraits and
Reviews (1931); and Our Theatres
in the Nineties (3 vols. 1931).
His first play
saw the light of day in 1891. Called Widower’s
Houses, it was the first of the dozen or so plays that he wrote after
that. Not many saw production on stage at that time. One of his plays - Mrs. Warren's Profession which was produced, fell to the censor’s
scissors. Undoubtedly the censors were around in those days too! Many of
plays however saw single performances, which were privately produced. He
also wrote fiction like The Black
Girl in Search of God and some Lesser
Tales and Cashel Byron's
Profession.
Wedding bells
rang in 1898, when he married Charlotte Payne-Townsend, an Irish lady. Now
he moved out of his mother’s house to set up an independent
establishment, which he could afford, as his wife was wealthy.
A few years after 1904 were good for Shaw’s plays. With Shaw
directing a few, many of his plays were produced under the aegis of an
experimental theatre. The next ten years saw many of his plays, some
written specifically for that particular theatre, on stage. This, besides
bringing him fame, brought him financial gains too. All this while, his
activities on the political front did not cease. He, in fact, used the
political platform to further the interests of drama.
Come 1914 and
the outbreak of war and Shaw gave vent to his feelings on the issue in his
writings that appeared in the newspaper in a series of articles called Common
Sense About the War. His strong views brought him ill repute in
political circles and he was even called a traitor. He poured his feelings
into Heartbreak House, a play
which mirrored his bitterness and despair about the political and social
scene of Britain in those days.
Back
to Methuselah, a
series of five plays and Saint Joan,
another play, rebuilt his reputation in the days after the war. The year
1925 witnessed Bernard Shaw being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He donated the cash that comes with the award to the cause of a Swedish
playwright, August Strindberg.
Now Shaw was a
well-known and respected name in Britain. His plays crossed the ocean and
were staged in the United States too.
His international stature immediately translated to involvement in
world politics. He was invited for lectures by to the Soviet Union and
also by the United States. Despite all these activities, he continued
writing profusely.
An accidental
fall off a ladder, in 1950, brought this illustrious life to an end. He
was 94 then and had been working on a play Why
She Would Not. The pen that gave us insights into his thoughts in the
form of How to Settle the Irish Question (1917) and The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928)
stopped writing, but after giving us the masterpieces Pygmalion, Candida and Arms
and The Man.
A rich man when
he died, Shaw had willed a large part of his estate to be dedicated to the
cause of revamping the English alphabet. He wanted to revamp the alphabet
because of the many illogical twists it had. Here’s an example of his
reasoning – ‘ghoti’, he said should be pronounced ‘fish’. This
can be achieved by the ‘gh’ being pronounced as in ‘enough’, i.e.,
‘f; the ‘o’ as in ‘women’ i.e., ‘i’; the ‘ti’ as in
‘nation’ i.e., ‘sh’. Well, you have your ‘fish’! As per his
wishes, his version of Androcles and
the Lion using the Shaw alphabet, was published, but as luck would
have it, it was not received well. After
this, the other beneficiaries of his estate the National Gallery of
Ireland, the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art were
given portions of his estate.
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