Page 273 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

Unit 22: G. B. Shaw: Saint Joan— Introduction to the Author and the Text

22.1 George Bernard Shaw—Introduction Notes

George Bernard Shaw was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working
class. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He
became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights
for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of
productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics,
serving on the London County Council.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar
(1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his
play of the same name), respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he
had no desire for public honours, but accepted it at his wife’s behest: she considered it a tribute to
Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish
books to English.

22.1.1 Biography

Birth and the Family
George Bernard Shaw was born in Synge Street, Dublin, in 1856 to George Carr Shaw (1814–85), an
unsuccessful grain merchant and sometime civil servant, and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw, née Gurly
(1830–1913), a professional singer. He had two sisters, Lucinda Frances (1853–1920), a singer of
musical comedy and light opera, and Elinor Agnes (1855–76).

Education
Shaw briefly attended the Wesley College, Dublin, a grammar school operated by the Methodist
Church in Ireland, before moving to a private school near Dalkey and then transferring to Dublin’s
Central Model School. He ended his formal education at the Dublin English Scientific and
Commercial Day School. He harboured a lifelong animosity toward schools and teachers, saying:
“Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and
teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing
and chaperoning their parents”. In the astringent prologue to Cashel Byron’s Profession young
Byron’s educational experience is a fictionalized description of Shaw’s own schooldays. Later, he
painstakingly detailed the reasons for his aversion to formal education in his Treatise on Parents
and Children. In brief, he considered the standardized curricula useless, deadening to the spirit
and stifling to the intellect. He particularly deplored the use of corporal punishment, which was
prevalent in his time.
When his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London,
Shaw was almost sixteen years old. His sisters accompanied their mother but Shaw remained in
Dublin with his father, first as a reluctant pupil, then as a clerk in an estate office. He worked
efficiently, albeit discontentedly, for several years. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother’s London
household. She, Vandeleur Lee, and his sister Lucy, provided him with a pound a week while he
frequented public libraries and the British Museum reading room where he studied earnestly and
began writing novels. He earned his allowance by ghostwriting Vandeleur Lee’s music column,
which appeared in the London Hornet. His novels were rejected, however, so his literary earnings
remained negligible until 1885, when he became self-supporting as a critic of the arts.

Marriage
In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled
in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw’s Corner.

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