George Bernard Shaw was born on July 26, 1856 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an important Irish playwright who have won The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

Biography and Career :

Apart from the musical education he received from his mother, he was practically self-educated.

George Bernard Shaw began writing at the age of 20, in London. He started his career as a novelist. He wrote five novels, but non of them made him famous.

Between 1884 and 1900 he joined Fabian Society, whose leader was during that time. He edited "Fabian Essays"(1887) which was influential in forming socialist opinion in Britain.

At first, George Bernard Shaw wrote much theatre and music criticism for a number of papers. In 1891 he published "The Quintessence of Ibsenism", a study on the Norwegia n dramatist whose plays of social criticism impressed him very much because of the new perspective he had brought in drama.

In Shaw's plays do not bother the characters, but the ideas. His characters do not talk in order to define themselves, but to make speeches. Regarding the ideas, Shaw was careful not to scandalize his audiences, but to make them think of the social conventions. He was the first dramatist to realize that there was a large category of reading public for plays, not necessarily a theatre-going public.

His leading doctrine, apart from socialism, was his belief in the "Life Force", which made progress possible.

Important Works :

- "Man and Superman"(1903),
- "Major Barbara"(1905),
- "Pygmalion"(1912),
- "Heartbreak House"(1917),
- "Saint Joan"(1924),
- "Pleasant and Unpleasant" (1898),
- "Plays for Puritans"(1901).

Before 1914 we mention:

- "The Doctor’s Dilemma",
- "Getting Married"

and before 1918 :

-"The Apple Cort",
- "In Good King Charle's Golden Days".

Trivia :

- His family belonged to the Irish Protestant gentry.
- He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.
_{George Bernard Shaw Image : theatreduparc.be}

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Category: Writers  - ( Writers Archive)

Date Added: 24 October '06

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