Dummipedia, the simplified free online encyclopedia
| "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize." [1] — George Bernard Shaw
|
| Fast Facts
|
| George Bernard Shaw
|
| Born
| July 26, 1856(1856-07-26)
Dublin, Ireland
|
| Died
| November 2, 1950 (aged 94)
Hertfordshire, England
|
| Occupation
| Playwright, critic, political activist
|
| Nationality
| Irish
|
| Genres
| Satire, Black comedy
|
| Literary movement
| Reformist Socialist
|
| Notable awards
| Nobel Prize in Literature
(1925)
Academy Award for Writing
Adapted Screenplay
1938: Pygmalion
|
|
| Influences
| Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, Henrik Ibsen, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry George, William Morris
|
|
| Influenced
| Socialism and Fabianism in the United Kingdom, Colin Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut
|
|
|
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) was a prolific Irish playwright who wrote 63 plays and more than 250,000 letters.[1] He is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These were for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film, Pygmalion, respectively. Shaw had wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright but, nonetheless, accepted it at his wife's behest as she considered it a tribute to Ireland. However, he did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance the translation of Swedish books to English.[1]
2. Born in Synge Street, Dublin, Shaw never went to university and was largely self-taught, as his father was an alcoholic and had very little money for his education. In 1872, his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London. Shaw joined his mother four years later in 1876. Earning his allowance by ghostwriting Vandeleur Lee's music column [1] in the London Hornet, Shaw frequented public libraries and the British Museum reading room where he studied earnestly and began writing novels.
3. Between 1879 and 1883, Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels, all of which, however, were eventually published. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama. In 1897, then age 41, Shaw achieved his first significant financial success as a playwright for Richard Mansfield's American production of The Devil's Disciple. Nearly all of his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege and found them all defective. He was most angered by the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings censure that abuse.
4. An ardent socialist, Shaw joined the newly formed Fabian Society in 1884, then age 28, as this intellectual movement accorded with his belief that reform should be gradual and induced by peaceful means, rather than by outright revolution.[1] He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Society and became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal political rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthful lifestyles. Shaw also supported the Stalinist regime, dismissing reports on famine as falsehoods.
5. In 1908, Oscar Strauss, a Viennese composer, staged The Chocolate Soldier, a musical adaptation of Shaw's Arms and the Man (1894). Although it was very popular, Shaw detested it so much that for the rest of his life, he forbade the musicalization of his works. Thus, the Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, could be produced only after his death. Shaw died in 1950, aged 94, in a house, now called Shaw's Corner, in Ayot St Lawrence from renal failure, precipitated by injuries caused by a fall, while pruning a tree. more... at Chronology
