英国文学16-G.Bernard-ShawPPT课件

1、1,George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950,When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. - George Bernard Shaw,Irish dramatist, literary critic, a socialist spokesman, and a leading figure in the 20th century theater, who was regarded as a second Shakespeare, who had revolutionized the British theatre.

2、A freethinker, defender of womens rights, and advocate of equality of income. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature,2,His Life,Bernard Shaw， a brilliant dramatist， was born in Dublin， Ireland， of English parentage. He once worked in a land agents office where he had much contact with

3、 the poor people in Dublin and came to know their miserable life. This experience surely enriched his understanding of the society and the sufferings of the people. In 1876 Shaw gave up his job and went to London，where he devoted much of his time to self-education by wide reading. Shaw came under th

4、e influence of Henry George and William Morris and took an interest in socialist theories. He started to attend all kinds of public meetings and to read Karl Marx in the British Museum. In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society (费边协会,伦敦创立的一种渐进社会主义团体) and became one of its most influential members,3,Sha

5、ws reform ideas,He regarded the establishment of socialism by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership as the final goal. But on how to achieve it，he differed greatly from the Marxists. He was against the means of violent revolution or armed struggle in ach

6、ieving the goal of socialism,4,Shaws reform ideas,he also had a distrust of the uneducated working class in fighting against capitalists. This reformist view of his caused him a painful，often conscious，inner conflict between his sincere desire for the new world and his inability to break out of the

7、snobbish intellectual isolation throughout his life and work,5,His Writing Career,Shaw wrote five novels in all the best of which is Cashel Byrons Profession （1886），which is about a world-famous prize fighter marrying a priggishly refined lady of property. His criticism is entitled Our Theaters in t

8、he Nineties （1931） In his long dramatic career， Shaw wrote more than 50 plays of a variety of subjects,6,His Writing Career,1） His early plays were mainly concerned with social problems and directed towards the criticism of the contemporary social， economic， moral and religious evils. Widowers House

9、 (鳏夫的财产)、 is a grotesquely realistic exposure of slum landlordism；Mrs. Warrens Profession(华伦夫人的职业)、 is a play about the economic oppression of women,7,His Writing Career,2） Shaw wrote quite a few history plays， in which he kept an eye on the contemporary society. The important plays of this group ar

10、e Caesar and Cleopatra （ 凯撒和克娄巴特拉1898） and St. Joan （ 圣女贞德 1923）. （3） Shaw also produced several plays， exploring his idea of Life Force， the power that would create superior beings to be equal to God and to solve all the social， moral， and metaphysical problems of human society. The typical example

11、s of this group are Man and Superman ） （ 人与超人1904） 、 and Back to Methuselah （ 千岁人 1921,8,His Writing Career,4） Besides， Shaw wrote plays on miscellaneous subjects： for instance. The Apple Cart （苹果车1929） is about politics； John Bulls Other Island (英国佬的另一个岛 1904） is about racial problems； Pygmalion (皮

12、格马利翁1912） is about culture and art,9,and The Doctors Dilemma ( 医生的两难选择1906) is about the ignorance， incompetence， arrogance and bigotry of the medical profession. Too True to Be Good （ 难以置信 1932） is a better play of the later period， with the authors almost nihilistic bitterness on the subjects of t

13、he cruelty and madness of World War I and the aimlessness and disillusion of the young. Getting Married （ 结婚 1908）， Misalliance （错姻缘 1910） and Fannys First Play 法妮的第一场戏 （1911） are about the problem of family and marriage,10,His major works,Arms and the Man，1894 武器与人 Mrs. Warrens Profession 1898 华伦夫人

14、的职业 Man and Superman 1903 人与超人 John Bulls Other Island, 1904） 英国佬的另一个岛 Major Barbara, 1905 巴巴拉少校 Pygmalion, 1913 皮格马利翁 Saint Joan, 1924 圣女贞德,11,Shaws literary ideas,Shaw held that art should serve social purposes by reflecting human life， revealing social contradictions and educating the common peop

15、le. Being a drama critic， Shaw directed his attacks on the Neo-Romantic tradition and the fashionable drawing-room drama. His criticism was witty， biting， and often brilliant. Shaw was strongly against the credo of art for arts sake held by those decadent aesthetic artists. In his critical essays， h

16、e vehemently condemned the well made but cheap， hollow plays which filled the English theater of the late 19th century to meet the low taste of the middle class,12,The main characteristics of Bernard Shaws plays,1） Structurally and thematically， Shaw followed the great traditions of realism. As a re

17、alistic dramatist， he took the modern social issues as his subjects with the aim of directing social reforms. Most of his plays， termed as problem plays， are concerned with political， economic， moral， or religious problems. And his plays have only one passion， i.e. indignation against oppression and

18、 exploitation， against hypocrisy and lying， against prostitution and slavery， against poverty， dirt and disorder,13,The main characteristics of Bernard Shaws plays,2） One feature of Shaws characterization is that he makes the trick of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another. Usual

19、ly he would take an unconventional character， a person with the gift of insight and freedom， and impinge it upon a group of conventional social animals， so as to reveal at every turn stock notions， prejudices and dishonesties. Another feature is that Shaws characters are the representatives of ideas

20、， points of view， that shift and alter during the play， for Mr. Shaw is primarily interested in doctrines,14,The main characteristics of Bernard Shaws plays,3） Much of Shavian drama is constructed around the inversion of a conventional theatrical situation. The inversion， a device found in Shaw from

21、 beginning to end， is an integral part of an interpretation of life. Inversion is also used in character portrayal to achieve comic effects,15,The main characteristics of Bernard Shaws plays,4） Shaws plays have plots， but they do not work by plots. The plot is usually the disregarded backbone to one

22、 long， unbroken conversation. It is the vitality of the talk that takes primacy over mere story. Action is reduced to a minimum， while the dialogue and the interplay of the minds of the characters maintain the interest of the audience. The forward motion consists not in the unrolling of plot but in

23、the operation of the spirit of discourse,16,Pygmalion,A Romance in Five Acts (1912) in which Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassadors garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer o

24、f gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech,17,Pygmalion,Although not as intellectually complex as some of the other plays in Shaws theatre of ideas, Pygmalion nevertheless probes important questions about social class, human behavior, and relations between th

25、e sexes. The play is a sharp satire of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on womens independence, packaged as a romantic comedy,18,Setting, Time Period, Atmosphere,The setting begins in Covent Garden, London. It is then confined to Higgins laboratory, Mrs. Higgins living room, a

26、nd a fancy high society party. The time period is anywhere in the early twentieth century. The atmosphere is social, light-hearted, and ironically sophisticated,19,Characters,Professor Henry Higgins - Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics; Eliza Doolittle- the heroine, a sassy, smart-mouthed ker

27、bstone flower girl with deplorable English Colonel Pickering - the author of Spoken Sanskrit, is a match for Higgins in his passion for phonetics. Alfred Doolittle- Alfred Doolittle is Elizas father, an elderly but vigorous dustman who has had at least six wives Mrs. Higgins- Professor Higgins mother, Freddy Eynsford Hill- a young, viable marriage option for Eliza,20,Influence,Pygmalion remains Shaws most popular play. The plays widest audiences know it as the inspiration for the highly romanticized 1956 musical and 1964 film. Ironically, Pygmalion has transcended cultural and langua