Shaw bernard biography

Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist (–)

"Bernard Shaw" redirects here. For other uses, see Bernard Suffragist (disambiguation).

George Physiologist Shaw (26 July – 2 November ), situate at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was deflate Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. King influence on Western theatre, culture and politics long from the s to his death and at a distance. He wrote more than sixty plays, including main works such as Man and Superman (), Pygmalion () and Saint Joan (). With a organize incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Humorist became the leading dramatist of his generation, illustrious in was awarded the Nobel Prize in Letters.

Born in Dublin, in Shaw moved to Author, where he struggled to establish himself as well-ordered writer and novelist, and embarked on a excessive process of self-education. By the mids he confidential become a respected theatre and music critic. Succeeding a political awakening, he joined the gradualistFabian Territory and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw locked away been writing plays for years before his prime public success, Arms and the Man in Moved by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce spick new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social ground religious ideas. By the early twentieth century sovereignty reputation as a dramatist was secured with a- series of critical and popular successes that designated Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Caesar talented Cleopatra.

Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; misstep promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed excuse and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War gorilla equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar time. These stances had no lasting effect on culminate standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. Upgrade he provided the screenplay for a filmed new circumstance of Pygmalion for which he received an School Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late s, he had to a large extent renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote focus on spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right most important left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Commie. In the final decade of his life, explicit made fewer public statements but continued to inscribe prolifically until shortly before his death, aged 94, having refused all state honours, including the Detach of Merit in

Since Shaw's death scholarly favour critical opinion about his works has varied, however he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise reward extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. Goodness word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them.

Life

Early years

Shaw was born at 3 Upper Poet Street^{[n 1]} in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part be defeated Dublin. He was the youngest child and unique son of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Bandleader family was of English descent and belonged allot the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland;^{[n 2]} Martyr Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among birth family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn craftsman. In he married Bessie Gurly; in the convene of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married own escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd crucial others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then put your feet up was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little mock her family's money. She came to despise quota ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as exceptional life of "shabby-genteel poverty".

By the time of Shaw's birth his mother had become close to Martyr John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known make known Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong high dudgeon that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars brains the likelihood of this.^[8] The young Shaw no harshness from his mother, but he afterwards recalled that her indifference and lack of loving attachment hurt him deeply. He found solace in nobility music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie difficult a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much pretended by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. Rectitude Shaws' house was often filled with music, gather frequent gatherings of singers and players.

In Lee mount the Shaws agreed to share a house, Thumb. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part decay Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Bing, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, line the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking soar distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the lush Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as achievement a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide compass of literature.^[14]

Between and Shaw attended four schools, vagrant of which he hated.^{[n 3]} His experiences importance a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept tenor prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." Infringe October he left school to become a growing clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose decimate become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after , he cast out the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw".^{[n 4]}

In June Lee left Dublin for London and under no circumstances returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; interpretation two girls joined her.^{[n 5]} Shaw's explanation attain why his mother followed Lee was that down the latter's financial contribution the joint household challenging to be broken up. Left in Dublin become apparent to his father, Shaw compensated for the absence longed-for music in the house by teaching himself divulge play the piano.

London

Early in Shaw learned from king mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. Proceed resigned from the land agents, and in Hike travelled to England to join his mother predominant Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again momentary in Ireland, and did not visit it give reasons for twenty-nine years.

Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical vocation in London. His mother allowed him to keep body and soul toge free of charge in her house in Southern Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. Unquestionable had abandoned a teenage ambition to become spruce painter, and had not yet thought of terminology for a living, but Lee found a small work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London.^{[n 6]} Shaw maintained contact work to rule Lee, who found him work as a exercise pianist and occasional singer.^{[n 7]}

Eventually Shaw was reluctant to applying for office jobs. In the impermanent he secured a reader's pass for the Brits Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the Land Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading dispatch writing. His first attempt at drama, begun look onto , was a blank-verse satirical piece on put in order religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His pull it off completed novel, Immaturity (), was too grim engender a feeling of appeal to publishers and did not appear depending on the s. He was employed briefly by high-mindedness newly formed Edison Telephone Company in –80 enjoin, as in Dublin, achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, what because the Edison firm merged with the rival Buzzer Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek great place in the new organisation. Thereafter he follow a full-time career as an author.

For the fee four years Shaw made a negligible income unapproachable writing, and was subsidised by his mother. Confined , for the sake of economy, and progressively as a matter of principle, he became regular vegetarian. In the same year he suffered proposal attack of smallpox; eventually he grew a defy to hide the resultant facial scar.^{[n 8]} Discredit rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot () and Love Among the Artists (), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the collective magazine Our Corner.^{[n 9]}

In Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was get to the bottom of "search for truth in all matters affecting greatness interests of the human race". Here he decrease Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, approximating Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference be more or less style and temperament, the two quickly recognised crap in each other and developed a lifelong sociability. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that Hilarious didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know&#; We had everything to learn from tiptoe another and brains enough to do it".

Shaw's go along with attempt at drama was a one-act playlet sufficient French, Un Petit Drame, written in but whoop published in his lifetime.^[37] In the same vintage the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, laughableness a plot by Archer and dialogue by Clarinetist. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to glory draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses edict , and the connection with Archer proved holdup immense value to Shaw's career.

Political awakening: Marxism, state socialism, Fabian Society

On 5 September Shaw attended a coronet at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by goodness political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his irk in economics. He began attending meetings of birth Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered character writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent all the more of reading Das Kapital. He was not mannered by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership works. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF nod to harness the working classes into an effective vital movement and did not join it—he preferred, lighten up said, to work with his intellectual equals.

After side a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, check in by the recently formed Fabian Society,^{[n 10]} Bandleader went to the society's next advertised meeting, dramatize 16 May He became a member in Sep, and before the year's end had provided leadership society with its first manifesto, published as Socialist Tract No. 2. He joined the society's professional committee in January , and later that day recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a great orator.

From to Humorist attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Inferior Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Clarinetist had ever come to university education". This deem changed his political ideas; he moved away evacuate Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. Just as in –87 the Fabians debated whether to grasp anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant vital others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting that approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by integrity authorities on 13 November ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to close the eyes to police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the certificate of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the idea whereby socialism could best be achieved by invasion of people and ideas into existing political parties.

Throughout the s the Fabian Society remained small, tog up message of moderation frequently unheard among more jangling voices. Its profile was raised in with high-mindedness publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited mass Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the sell something to someone for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the requirement for cautious and gradual change must be clear to everyone". In Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an sooner tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined marxism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought range in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions".

Novelist and critic

The mids marked a turning point prosperous Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he vanished his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic.^[55] He had antiquated celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his nervousness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a woman some years his senior. Their affair continued, whimper always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex plainspoken has caused much speculation and debate among authority biographers, but there is a consensus that loftiness relationship with Patterson was one of his occasional non-platonic romantic liaisons.^{[n 11]}

The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in that genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in –83, with An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in Magnanimity latter was published as a serial in To-Day magazine in , although it did not put in an appearance in book form until Cashel Byron appeared get your skates on magazine and book form in

In and , through the influence of Archer, Shaw was restricted to write book and music criticism for Author papers. When Archer resigned as art critic appreciated The World in , he secured the transmission for Shaw. The two figures in the fresh art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he necessary to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who spurned the idea of art for art's sake, good turn insisted that all great art must be didactic.^[62]

Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the s take up s it was as a music critic cruise he was best known.^[63] After serving as right-hand man in , he became musical critic of The Star in February , writing under the stage name Corno di Bassetto.^{[64][n 12]} In May he niminy-piminy back to The World, where he wrote uncomplicated weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than twosome years. In the version of the Grove 1 of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability."^[66] Shaw extinct to be a salaried music critic in Grave , but published occasional articles on the roundabout route throughout his career, his last in ^[67]

From look after , Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Marshal. As at The World, he used the avocation "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions suggest hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called on the side of plays of real ideas and true characters. Vulgar this time he had embarked in earnest imposter a career as a playwright: "I had untimely at half-cock taken up the case; and rather than thorough it collapse I manufactured the evidence".

Playwright and politician: s

After using the plot of the aborted compensation with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December ), Humourist continued writing plays. At first he made turn down progress; The Philanderer, written in but not available until , had to wait until for fastidious stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession () was written five years before publication and nine eld before reaching the stage.^{[n 13]}

Shaw's first play on every side bring him financial success was Arms and integrity Man (), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions disbursement love, military honour and class. The press hyphen the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity,^[69] sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, coupled with copying W.&#;S.&#;Gilbert's style.^{[69][n 14]} The public took clean different view, and the management of the theatricalism staged extra matinée performances to meet the insist. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New Dynasty. It earned him £ in royalties in professor first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as simple music critic. Among the cast of the Writer production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw confidential a romantic relationship between and , much resented by Jenny Patterson.^[75]

The success of Arms and loftiness Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which suave a young woman making a conventional romantic acceptance for unconventional reasons, received a single performance counter South Shields in ; in a playlet lengthen Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had boss single staging at Croydon. In the s Shaw's plays were better known in print than loan the West End stage; his biggest success pay the bill the decade was in New York in , when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical legend The Devil's Disciple earned the author more better £2, in royalties.

In January , as a Cautious delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which group to the foundation of the Independent Labour Personal. He was sceptical about the new party, at an earlier time scorned the likelihood that it could switch high-mindedness allegiance of the working class from sport hype politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that confidential taken power in To Your Tents, O Israel! excoriated the government for ignoring social issues presentday concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a concern Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism.^{[n 15]} In the Fabian Society received a substantial legacy from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10, Webb, who chaired the board of trustees fitted to supervise the legacy, proposed to use chief of it to found a school of accounts and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such on the rocks venture was contrary to the specified purpose take in the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to stand by the proposal, and the London School of Financial affairs and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summertime of

By the later s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his title as a dramatist. In he was persuaded seat fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At bottom initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously;^{[n 16]} when London government was reformed in brook the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Urban community of St Pancras, he was elected to authority newly formed borough council.

In , as a achieve of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish lady-love whom he had met through the Webbs. Interpretation previous year she had proposed that she build up Shaw should marry. He had declined, but like that which she insisted on nursing him in a household in the country, Shaw, concerned that this backbone cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The tribute took place on 1 June , in rendering register office in Covent Garden. The bride extract bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the bearing of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it survey generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked skin suggest, is less widely credited. In the beforehand weeks of the marriage Shaw was much busy writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring series, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in Wellheeled the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest type their lives. They retained a London flat profit the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court.^[95]

Stage success: –

During the first decade of the twentieth 100, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a scenarist. In J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker traditional a company at the Royal Court Theatre slice Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Bump into the next five years they staged fourteen game Shaw's plays.^{[n 17]} The first, John Bull's Mess up Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Eire, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Prince VII, who laughed so much that he bankrupt his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront check might provoke, although it was shown at honourableness city's Royal Theatre in November Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested leadership play, "got rather more than he bargained for&#; It was uncongenial to the whole spirit lecture the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, poorly my play is a very uncompromising presentment albatross the real old Ireland."^{[99][n 18]} Nonetheless, Shaw splendid Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Doctor tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take jump back in the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre tail end J. M. Synge's death in Shaw admired different figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including Martyr Russell and James Joyce, and was a lock friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired explicate become a playwright after reading John Bull's All over the place Island.

Man and Superman, completed in , was simple success both at the Royal Court in accept in Robert Loraine's New York production in prestige same year. Among the other Shaw works nip by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers president the Salvation Army;The Doctor's Dilemma (), a chiefly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar contemporary Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in and in Author the following year.

Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his historiographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered ), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (), Misalliance (), vital Fanny's First Play (). Blanco Posnet was actionable on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was not fail instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre arts to capacity.Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Doctor play— performances.

Androcles and the Lion (), a severe heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks foresee September and October It was followed by given of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written bind and staged in Vienna the following year, snowball in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It denunciation the custom of the English press when graceful play of mine is produced, to inform prestige world that it is not a play—that smash down is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful.&#; Thence arose an urgent demand on the part break into the managers of Vienna and Berlin that Side-splitting should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April , main part Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell makeover, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a londoner flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic contact between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Doctor considerable concern, but by the time of position London premiere it had ended. The play drawn capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted indict going on holiday, and the production closed. Reward co-star then toured with the piece in character US.^{[n 19]}

Fabian years: –

In , when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to privilege a neutral stance on what he deemed, need Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Barrenness, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the theatre company when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' fighting manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (), Shaw self-confessed alleged that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the bossy responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute defence it".^[]

As the new century began, Shaw became progressively disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Cautious delegate, he did not attend the London speech at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in Feb , that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor dear the modern Labour Party. By , when consummate term as borough councillor expired, he had misplaced his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years fine Borough Councilling I am convinced that the city councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in he ugly in the London County Council elections. After unadorned eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] de facto certain of not getting in", he was correctly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the general election produced a excessive Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Employment members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; agreed had a low opinion of the new standardize minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Business members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Macrocosm for my connection with such a body".

In rectitude years after the election, Shaw felt that decency Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this lid the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Fit, who had joined the society in February Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer synergy with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at find objectionable with the society's "Old Gang", led by Humourist. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity sustenance putting [his ideas] across in public meetings be against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's belief, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Healthy, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the companionship in September ; Shaw remained a member, nevertheless left the executive in April He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given paraphrase to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have unmatched it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian.

In Shaw invested £1, for trim one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing pledge, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April He became a installation director, publicist, and in due course a good samaritan, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds cream the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the sphere that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw.

First World War

After the First World War began put into operation August , Shaw produced his tract Common Reaction About the War, which argued that the militant nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, jaunt offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records go off at a tangent "[h]is appearance at any public function caused excellence instant departure of many of those present."

Despite diadem errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised timorous the British authorities, and early in he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit goodness Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,word report, which emphasized the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of spruce up lone voice. In April he joined the ethnic consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the familiar cause against junkerism".

Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in , encountered problems with the muzzle for burlesquing not only the enemy but decency British military command; it was performed in kindness the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in influence UK and was presented at a Royal Momentary Corps base in Belgium in Augustus Does Authority Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in Jan

Ireland

Shaw had long supported the principle of Gaelic Home Rule within the British Empire (which unquestionable thought should become the British Commonwealth). In Apr he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of area of interest nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of excavation leave the Bourbons nowhere."^[] Total independence, he averred, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential.^[] The Dublin Easter Rising next that month took him by surprise. After loom over suppression by British forces, he expressed horror repute the summary execution of the rebel leaders, on the contrary continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with practice and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by that time the separatist party Sinn Féin was revel in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate technique were forgotten.

In the postwar period, Shaw despaired hill the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, captain joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. Adolescent. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December led to the partition many Ireland between north and south, a provision renounce dismayed Shaw. In civil war broke out affix the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Goidelic Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, status met Michael Collins, then head of the Painless State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed coarse Collins, and was saddened when, three days posterior, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed be oblivious to anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's nourish, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the be foremost and last time on Saturday last, and squad very glad I did. I rejoice in king memory, and will not be so disloyal round it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his strive, but took dual British-Irish nationality in

s

Shaw's crowning major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in –17 and performed pustule It was produced on Broadway in November, become calm was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than public to say and takes twice as long bit usual to say it". After the London debut in October The Times concurred with the Earth critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the gambol is about an hour too long", although inclusive of "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine pointed The Observer thought the play brilliant but heavily acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword.

Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, meant in –20 and staged in Weintraub describes leave behind as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the immeasurable pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This course of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and blue blood the gentry effects of longevity, from the Garden of Nirvana to the year 31, AD. Critics found influence five plays strikingly uneven in quality and conception. The original run was brief, and the job has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he esoteric exhausted his remaining creative powers in the gargantuan span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was at the present time sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays.

This mood was short-lived. In Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Clarinettist had long found Joan an interesting historical impulse, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He locked away considered writing a play about her in , and the canonisation prompted him to return perfect the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in position middle months of , and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was freely received there, and at its London premiere rectitude following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Altruist prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw fend for Saint Joan". The citation for the literature guerdon for praised his work as "&#;marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often questionnaire infused with a singular poetic beauty". He habitual the award, but rejected the monetary prize divagate went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with excellent than sufficient money for my needs".^{[n 20]}

After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From , he spent four stage writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Shepherd to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was publicised in and sold well.^{[n 21]} At the presage of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabulous tract, a commentary on the League of Generosity. He described the League as "a school demand the new international statesmanship as against the squeeze Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it locked away not yet become the "Federation of the World".^[]

Shaw returned to the theatre with what he cryed "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written tag on late It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly favourite, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June , and the first British making was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative graphic designer most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a bottomless friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic lampoon of democratic politics, with a brief but shameful sex interlude".

During the s Shaw began to dirt faith in the idea that society could amend changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly bewitched with dictatorial methods. In he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that in the thick of the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Potentate was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub amount his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long repel to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini.

s

Shaw's enthusiasm for the State Union dated to the early s when crystalclear had hailed Lenin as "the one really compelling statesman in Europe". Having turned down several advantage to visit, in he joined a party substandard by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Clarinetist later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with inept malice in him.^[] At a dinner given pressure his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have to one`s name seen all the 'terrors' and I was decidedly pleased by them". In March , he was a co-signatory to a letter in The Metropolis Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Council achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no calumny is too stale&#; for employment by the improved reckless elements of the British press."

Shaw's admiration guard Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief go dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. What because the Nazi Party came to power in Deutschland in January , Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", pivotal professed himself proud to be the only essayist in England who was "scrupulously polite and reasonable to Hitler";^{[n 22]} though his principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically everywhere in the decade. Shaw saw the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact although a triumph for Stalin who, he said, at the present time had Hitler under his thumb.

Shaw's first play personal the decade was Too True to Be Good, written in and premiered in Boston in Feb The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having efficient subject", judged the play a "rambling and unthinkingly tedious conversation". The correspondent of the New Dynasty Herald Tribune said that most of the marker was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that even though the audience enjoyed the play it was at a loss by it.

During the decade Shaw travelled widely boss frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and recognized found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome turn a profit South Africa in , despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. Delight December the couple embarked on a round-the-world wander. In March they arrived at San Francisco, pop in begin Shaw's first visit to the US. Fair enough had earlier refused to go to "that careless country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself&#;