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G. Bernard Shaw (he hated the "George", which was his father's first name, and never used it, either personally or professionally) (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. After those of William Shakespeare, Shaw's plays are some of the most widely produced in English language theatre.

Biography

Born at 33 Synge Street in Dublin, Ireland to rather poor Protestant parents, Bernard Shaw was educated at Wesley College, Dublin and moved to London during the 1870s to embark on his literary career. He wrote five novels, all of which were rejected, before finding his first success as a music critic on the Star newspaper. He wrote his music criticism under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto. In the meantime he had become involved in politics, and served as a local councillor in the St Pancras district of London for several years from 1897. He was a noted socialist who took a leading role in the Fabian Society.

In 1895, Shaw became the drama critic of the Saturday Review, and this was the first step in his progress towards a lifetime's work as a dramatist. In 1898, he married an Irish heiress, Charlotte Payne-Townshend. His first successful play, Candida, was produced in the same year. He followed this up with a series of classic comedy-dramas, including The Devil's Disciple (1897), Arms and the Man (1898), Mrs Warren's Profession (1898), Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900), Man and Superman (1903), Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), Major Barbara (1905), Androcles and the Lion (1912), and Pygmalion (1913). After World War I, during which he was a staunch pacifist, he produced more serious dramas, including Heartbreak House (1919) and Saint Joan (1923). A characteristic of Shaw's published plays is the lengthy prefaces that accompany them. In these essays, Shaw wrote more about his usually controversial opinions on the issues touched by the plays than about the plays themselves. Some prefaces are much longer than the actual play.

The political turmoil in his native country did not leave him untouched. Shaw is said to have commented regarding the Easter Rising that not enough slum homes were destroyed that could have been rebuilt, and he campaigned against the executions of the rebel leaders. Shaw became a personal friend of the Cork-born IRA leader Michael Collins, whom he invited to his home for dinner while Collins was negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Lloyd-George in London. After Collins's assassination in 1922, Shaw sent a personal message of condolence to one of Collins's sisters.

Shaw's correspondence with Mrs Patrick Campbell was adapted for the stage by Jerome Kilty as DEAR LIAR: A Comedy of Letters. His letters to another prominent actress, Ellen Terry, have also been published and dramatised.

By the time of his death, Shaw was not only a household name in Britain, but a world figure. His ironic wit endowed the language with the adjective "Shavian" to refer to such clever observations as "England and America are two countries divided by a common language."

Concerned about the inconsistency of English spelling, he willed a portion of his wealth to fund the creation of a new phonemic alphabet for the English language. On his death bed, he did not have much money to leave so no effort was made to start such a project. However, his estate began to earn significant royalties from the rights to Pygmalion when My Fair Lady, a musical adapted from the play by his comrade film producer Gabriel Pascal, became a hit. It then became clear that the will was so badly worded that the relatives had grounds to challenge the will, and in the end an-out-of-court settlement granted only a small portion of the money to promoting a new alphabet. This became known as the Shavian alphabet. The National Gallery of Ireland also received a substantial donation.

Shaw had a long time friendship with G. K. Chesterton, the Catholic-convert British writer, and there are many humorous stories about their complicated relationship. Another great friend was the composer Edward Elgar.

Shaw is the only person ever to have won both a Nobel Prize (for Literature in 1925) and an Academy Award (Best Screenplay for Pygmalion in 1938).

From 1906 until his death in 1950 at the age of 94 from natural causes, Shaw lived at Shaw's Corner in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire. The house is now a National Trust property, open to the public.

The Shaw Theatre, Euston Road, London was opened in 1971 to honour G.B. Shaw.

Vegetarianism

Bernard Shaw was a noted vegetarian. The following was taken from the archives of The Vegetarian Society UK :

The Summer of 1946 seems to have been a season of anniversaries and memorials. The Vegetarian Society itself was looking forward to its 100th anniversary and giving its members advance warnings of celebratory plans.

But the big story of the July issue of The Vegetarian Messenger was the tribute to George Bernard Shaw, celebrating his 90th birthday on the 26th of that month. He had, at that time, been a vegetarian for 66 years and was commended as one of the great thinkers and dramatists of his era. "No writer since Shakespearean times has produced such a wealth of dramatic literature, so superb in expression, so deep in thought and with such dramatic possibilities as Shaw." The writer was a staunch vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist and opponent of cruel sports.

See link below for quotes related to vegetarianism and Bernard Shaw.

Socialism and Political Beliefs

Shaw had a vision (letter to Henry James of January 17, 1909):

“I, as a Socialist, have had to preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing it. What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.”

Shaw held that each class worked towards its own ends, and that those from the upper echelons had won the struggle; for him, the working class had failed in promoting their interests effectively, making Shaw highly critical of the democratic system of his day (to the extent that he praised Stalin in the 1930s and even published some (possibly ironic) statements that seemed to praise Hitler. Shaw seems to have shared the anti-semitism that was more or less ubiquitous in the intellectual milieus in which he moved, but, again, the extent to which he was merely being provocative is not clear). The writing of Shaw, such as his plays Major Barbara and Pygmalion, has a background theme of class struggle.

Shaw’s second labour — after theatre — was in support of socialism. In 1882 Henry George’s lecture on land nationalization gave depth and direction to Shaw’s political ideology. Shortly thereafter he applied to join the Social Democratic Federation. Its leader H. M. Hyndman introduced him to the works of Karl Marx. Instead, in May of 1884 he joined the newly-formed Fabian Society. He played a pivotal role with the Fabian Society and wrote a number of their pamphlets. He argued that property was theft and for an equitable distribution of land and capital. He was involved with the formation of the Labour Party. For a clear statement of his position read The Intelligent Women’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism.

Quotations

"You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?". (from "Back to Methuselah"; this is often misattributed to Robert or John F Kennedy)
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
"Whilst we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells."
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
"Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."
"Most people would rather die sooner than think. In fact, they do so."
"Lack of money is the root of all evil."
"Youth is wasted on the young."
"Democracy is a system ensuring that the people are governed no better than they deserve."
"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
"The main difference between the opposition of Islam to Hinduism and the opposition between Protestant and Catholic is that the Catholic persecutes as fiercely as the Protestant when he has the power; but Hinduism cannot persecute, because all the Gods - and what goes deeper, the no Gods - are to be found in its Temples."
"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."
(To a woman who wrote to him that she wanted to have children with him because she was beautiful and he was very intelligent. Therefore, their children would be intelligent and good looking.) "What if our children are as ugly as I am and as silly as you are?"
"Irish history is something no Englishman should forget and no Irishman should remember."
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
"Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned."
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means."
"The secret of success is to offend the greatest number of people."
"I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man - and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can."
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."
"Animals are my friends ... and I don't eat my friends."
"There is no love sincerer than the love of food."
"You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."
"My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world."
"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation."
"I am a Millionaire. That is my religion."
"A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell."
"The golden rule is that there are no golden rules."
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
"The Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them."
"A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth."
"Every man over forty is a scoundrel."
"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it."