G.B. Shaw: The Dramatist and His Plays

ENGLISH

Shaw is by far the most frequently performed dramatist after Shakespeare and yet a remarkable number of educated and literate people, even people with a remarkable interest in the drama, would receive with astonishment or dismiss with contempt the view that Shaw was Shakespeare’s nearest rival. For years it was commonplace to deny that he was a playwright at all, and still there remains a widespread feeling that his characters are little more than walking ideas manipulated by a preacher/ propagandist. His reputation in university departments of English or drama is extremely limited; his name appears very infrequently on course syllabuses and few academics would place him as one of the great writers of the twentieth century. While the standing of Joyce, Lawrence, Yeats and Eliot becomes more assured with every year, Shaw continues to suffer from a disabling association with cranks and enthusiasts.

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