Ministry of higher and secondary special education of the republic of uzbekistan university of languages 2nd faculty of foreign language and literature 2nd year 2010 group o’rozaliyeva marjona

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES 2nd FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 2nd year 2010 GROUP O’ROZALIYEVA MARJONA
COURSE WORK
Subject : George Bernard Shaw – his life and work. Three groups of Shaw’s plays. Plays, reflecting historical events. The most popular play “Pygmalion”.

Subject : George Bernard Shaw – his life and work. Three groups of Shaw’s plays. Plays, reflecting historical events. The most popular play “Pygmalion”.
Plan.

1. 
   Introduction.
   
2. 
   Main section.
   

1. 
   George Bernard Shaw – his life and work.
   
2. 
   Three groups of Shaw’s plays. Plays, reflecting historical events.
   
3. 
   The most popular play “Pygmalion”.
   

3. 
   Conclusion.
   
4. 
   References.
   

Introduction.
It is a circumstance of no little significance that Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, two dramatists Whose plays have achieved s o notable a success on the European stage , should both have been born in Dublin within two years of one another . It has been the good fortune of no other living British or I rish dramatist of our day t o receive the enthusiastic acclaim of the most cultured public o f continental Europe . What more fitting and natural than this sustention , by the countrymen of Swift and Sheridan , of the Celtic reputation for brilliancy, clever ness and wit ? George Bernard Shaw was bo rn on July 2 6th, l 856—well nigh a century later than his countryman and fellow-townsman , Richard Brinsley Sheridan . Only one year before , in 1 855, was born Shaw ’ s sole rival to the place of the foremost living dramatist of the United Kingdom, Arthur Wing Pinero . It is an interesting coincidence that the year which saw the demise of that first man of his century , ” Heinrich Heine , als o wit messed the birth of the brilliant and original spirit who is , in some sense , his natural and logical successor : Bern ard Shaw . There is some suggestion of the workings of that wonderful law of compensation , which Emerson preached with such high seri ousnes s , in this synchronous relation of birth and death , con necting Heine and Shaw . The circumstance might be said to proclaim the unb roken continuity of the comic spirit . Bernard Shaw possesses the unique faculty of befuddling the brains of more sane writers than any other living man . The critic of conventional view-point is dismayed by the discovery that Shaw is bound by no conventions whatever, with the possible exception of the mechanical conventions of the stage. Shaw is essentially an intellectual , not an emotional , talent ; the critic of large imaginative sympathy discovers in him one who on o ccasion disclaims the possession of imag ination . Unlike the idealist critic , Shaw is never a hero-worshipper : he de rides heroism and makes game of humanity . To the analyt ic critic , with his schools , his classifications , his labellings , Shaw is the elusive and unanalyzable quantity—a fantastic original , a talent wholly sui g eneris . With all his realism, he cannot be called the exponent of a school . It would be nearer the truth to say that he is himself a school . It is f utile to attempt to measure Shaw with the foot -rule of prej udice o r convention . Only by placing oneself exactly at his peculiar point of view and reco rding the impressions received without prej udice, preference or caricature , can one ever hope to fathom the mystery of this disquieting intelligence . Most mocking when most serious , most fantastic when most earnest ; his every word belies his intent . The antipode to the farcicality o f pompous dulness , his gr avity is that of the masquerader in motley , the mordant humour of the licensed fool . Contradiction between manner and meaning, between method and essence, con s tit utes the real secret of his career . The truly noteworthy consideration is not that Shaw is incorrigibly fantastic and frivolous ; the alarming fact is that he is remarkably consistent and prof oundly in earn est . The willingness of the public t o accept the art ist at his face value blinds its eyes to the profound , almost grim, seriousness of the man . The great solid and central fact of his li fe is that he has used the art istic mask o f humour to conceal the unswerving purpos e of the humanitarian and social reformer . The story of the career o f George Bernard Shaw, in whom is found the almost unprecedented combination of the most brilliantly whimsical humour with the most serious and vital purpose , has already, even in our time , taken on s omewhat of the character o f a legend . It might become a fairy s to ry , in very fact , if we did not finally determine t o relate it, to ass ociate it in printed f orm with the life of our time as well as in many conversations on the subject with Mr . Shaw, I have discovered ample explanation of his scepticism concern ing the binding ties of blood , of the strangely unsympathetic , even hostile , relations between parents and children displayed throughout his entire work . These autobiog raphical accounts reveal on his part less filial aff ection than a so rt o f comic dis respect f or the mistakes , faults and frailties of his parents and relatives . Mr . Shaw ’ s grandfather was a Dublin notary and stockbroker, who lef t a large f amily unprovided for at his death . George Carr Shaw, his son and Bernard Shaw ’ s father, was an Irish Protestant gentleman ; his rank— a very damnable one in his son ’ s eyes —was that of a poor relation of that particular gradé of the hau te bourg eoisie which makes strenuous s ocial preten sions . He had no money , it seems , no education , no profession , no manual skill , no qualification of any s ort fo r any definite social f unction . Moreover , he had been brought up to believe that there was an inborn virtue of gentility in all Shaws , since they revolved impecuniously in a sort of vague second cousinship round a baronetcy . ” His people , who were prolific and numerous , always spoke of themselves as the Shaws with an intense sense of their own importance—as one would speak of the Hohenzollerns or the Romanoff s . An amiable , bu t timid man , the father ’ s wo rst faults were inefficiency and hypocrisy . His son could only say of him that he might have been a weaker brother of Charles Lamb . Proclaiming, and half believing, himself a teetotaller , he was in practice often a. furtive drinker . The one trait of his which was reproduced in his son , his antithesis in almost every other respect , was a sense of humour, an appreciation of the comic f orce of anti -climax . When I was a child , he gave me my first dip in the sea in Killiney Bay , writes his son . He prefaced it by a very seri ous exhortation on the importance of learning to swim, culminating in these words : When I was a boy of only f ourteeen, my knowledge of swimming enabled me to save your Uncle Robert ’ s life . ’ Then , seeing that I was deeply impressed, he stooped , and added con fident ially in my ear : And , t o tell the truth , I never was so sorry f or anything in my lif e afterwards . ’ He then plunged into the ocean , enj oyed a thoroughly refreshing swim, and chuckled all the Way home . All the Shaws , because of that remote baronetcy , Mr . Shaw once gravely assured me , considered it the first duty of a respect able Government to provide them with sinecures . After holding a couple of clerkships , Shaw ’ s father, by some means , finally assert ed his family claim on the State with sufficient success t o attain a post in the Four Court s~the Dublin Courts of Justice . This post in the Civil Service must have been a gross sinecure, fo r by 1 850 it was abolished , and he was pensioned off . He then sold his small pension and went into business as a wholesale dealer in corn , a business of which he had not the slightest knowledge . I cannot begin , like Ruskin , by saying that my father was an entirely honest merchant , ” said his son in one of his autobiographical confidences . I don ’ t know whether he was o r not ; I do know that he was an entirely unsuccessful one . ” In addition to a warehouse and office in the city , he had a flour mill at a place called Dolphin ’ s Barn , a few miles out . This mill , attached to the business as a matter of ceremony , perhaps paid its own rent , since the machinery was generally in motion . But its chief use, according to Bernard Shaw, was to amuse me and my boon companions , the s ons of my father ’ s partner . ” When he was about forty years of age , Shaw ’ s father married Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly , the daughter of a country g entleman . Students in eugenics might find in their disparity in age —a dif ference of twenty years— s ome explanation of the singular quali ties and unique genius of their s on . The estate in Carlow, now owned by Mr . Shaw, descended t o him from his maternal grand father, Walter Bagnal Gurly , through his mother ’ s brother . Miss Gurly was brought up with extreme severity by her ma ternal aunt , Ellen Whit crof t , a sweet - faced lady , with a deformed back and a ruthless will , who gave her niece the most rigorous training , with the intention of subsequently leaving her a fortune . O ne must beware of the erro r of exaggerating the influen ce of Puritanism upon Shaw ’ s character in his y outh . Mr . Shaw has laughed consumedl y at Mr . Chestert on for spe aking of his narrow , Pur itan home . ” A little incident may serve t o reflect the t one of the heated religious controversies that went on in Mr . Shaw ’ s home when he was a lad . Shaw ’ s father . one of his maternal un cles , and a visit or engag ed one day in a discus sion over the raising of Lazarus . Mr . Shaw held the evangel ical view : that it t ook place exactly as described . The visitor was a pure sceptic , and dismissed the stor v as manifestly impossible . But Shaw ’ s un cle described it as a put -up j ob , in which Jesus had made a conf ederate of Lazarus— had made it worth his while, o r asked him fo r friendship ’ s sake to pretend he was dead and at the proper moment t o pretend t o come t o life . ' Now imag ine me as a little child , ” said Shaw in narrating the s torv. ‘ in my ‘ narrow, Puritan home , ’ listening t o this ) discussion . I listened with very great interest , and I o conf es s t o you that the view which recommended itself most t o me was that of my maternal uncle , and I think , on reflection , you will admit that that was the right and healthy point o f view fo r a boy t o take , bec ause my maternal uncle ’ s view appealed to a sense of humour . this unexpected and vexatious conduct on the part of this absurdly inexperienced young woman , her erstwhile paragon and p rote ’ g e ’ e, summarily disinherited her . In many ways , Miss Gurly ’ s marriage proved a disappointment . Her husband , one of the most impecunious of men , was far too poor to enable her t o live on the scale t o which she had been accustomed . Indeed , he was anything but a satisfactory husband for a clever woman . It was in her music that Mrs . Shaw found solace and comfort —a refuge from domestic disappointment . The formative influences of Shaw ’ s early life were of a nature to inculcate in him that disbelief in popular education , that disrespect for popular religion , and that contempt fo r social pretensions which are so deeply ingrained in his work and character . Is it any wonder, after his youthful experience with orthodox religion , that , like Tennyson , he cherished a contempt for the God of the British : “ an immeasurable clergyman ” ? In his own perverse and brilliant way , he has told us th e history of his progressive revolt against the religious standards of his family I believe Ireland , as far as the Protestant gentry are concerned , to be the most irreligious country in the world . I was christened by my uncle ; and as my godfather was intoxicated and did not turn up , the sexton was ordered t o promise and vow in his place, precisely as my uncle might have ordered him t o put more coals on the vestry fire . I was never confirmed , and I believe my parents never were either . The seriousness with which English families take this rite , and the deep impression it makes on many children , was a thing of which I had no conception . Prot es tantism in Ireland is not a religion ; it is a side in political faction , a class prej udice , a conviction that Roman Catholics are s ocially inferior persons , who will go to hell when they die , and leave Heaven in the exclusive possession of ladies and gentlemen . In my childhood I was sent every Sunday to a Sunday school where genteel children repeated texts , and were rewarded with little cards inscribed with other tex ts . After an hour of this , we were marched into the adj oining church , to fidg et there until our neighbours must have wished the service over as heartily as we did . I suf f ered this , not for my salvation , but because my father ’ s respectability demanded it . When we went t o live in the c ountry , remote from social criticism, I broke with the observance and never resumed it . What helped t o make this church a hot -bed of all the social vices was that no wo rking folk ever came to it . In England the clergy go among the poor , and s ometimes do try desperately to get them to come to church . In Ireland the poor are Catholics Papists , ’ as my Orange grandfather called them . The Protestant Church has nothing to do with them . Its snobbery is quite unmitigated . I cannot say that in Ireland every man is the worse for what he calls his religion . I can only say that all the people I knew were . ” One must beware of the error of exaggerating the influence of Puritanism upon Shaw ’ s character in his youth . Mr . Shaw has laughed consumedly at Mr . Chesterton for speaking of his narrow, Puritan home . ” A little incident may serve to reflect the tone of the heated religious controversies that went on in Mr . Shaw ’ s home when he was a lad . Shaw ’ s father , one of his maternal uncles , and a visitor engaged one day in a discus sion over the raising of Lazarus . Mr . Shaw held the evangelical view : that it took place exactly as described . The visitor was a pure sceptic , and dismissed the story as manifestly impossible . But Shaw ’ s uncle described it as a put -up j ob , in which Jesus had made a confederate of Lazarus— had made it worth his while, or asked him for friendship ’ s sake to pretend he was dead and at the proper moment to pretend to come t o life . Now imagine me as a little child , ” said Shaw in narrating the story , “ in my narr ow, Puritan home , ’ listening to this discussion . I listened with very great interest , and I confess to you that the view which recommended itself most to me was that of my maternal uncle , and I think , on reflection , you will admit that that was the right and healthy point of view fo r a boy to take , because my maternal uncle ’ s view appealed to a sense of humour, which is a very good thing and a very human thing, whereas the other two views—one appealing t o my mere credulity and the other to mere scepticism— really did not appeal to any thing at all that had any genuine religious value . Now that was really the tone of religious controversy at that time , and it almost always showed us the barrenness on the side of relig ion very much mo re than it did on the side of scepticism . ” This anecdote brings irresistibly t o mind Mark Twain ’ s story of the old sea - captain who declared that Elij ah had won out in the altar contest , not because of his superiority over the other prophets , or of his God t o theirs , but because , under the pretence that it was water , he had had the foresight to inundate his altar with— petroleum ! A short while after he entered a land office in Dublin as an employee , a position secured for him by his uncle , Frederick Shaw, a high official in the Valuation Office, it was discovered that the young Shaw, then in his teens , instead of being an extremely correct Protestant and churchgoer , was actually what used t o be known in those days as an infidel . ” Many were the arguments , on the subject of religion and faith , that arose among the employees of the firm, a rguments that usually went hard for young Shaw, the novice , untrained in dialectic . What is the use o f arguing, ” one of the apprentices , Humphrey Lloyd , said to -Shaw one day , when you don ’ t know what a syllogism is ? ” As he once t old me , Mr . Shaw promptly went and found out what it was , learning, like Moliere ’ s hero , that he had been making syllogisms all his life without knowing it . Mr . Uniacke Townshend , Shaw ’ s employer , a pillar of the church — and of the Royal Dublin Society— s o far respected his free dom of conscience as to make no attempt to reason with him, only imposing the condition that the subject be not discussed in the office . Although secretly chafing under the restraint , young Shaw for a time honourably submitted to the stern limitation ; but an outbreak of some s ort was inevitable . The immediate occasion of his first alarming appearance in print was the visit of the American evangelists , Moody and Sankey , t o Dublin . Their arrival in Great Britain created a considerable sensation , and young Shaw went t o hear them when they came to ’ Dublin .